


If our love is wrong then I don't ever wanna be right

by chekecp



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Student/Teacher, AvaLance, F/F, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-04-23 10:07:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 39,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14330157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chekecp/pseuds/chekecp
Summary: Ava is the new teacher at Star City High.Sara is the student who breaks all the rules.They hate each other from the first time they meet, but they will learn to love each other.Their love is forbidden, but by the time they realize that, they've already fallen for each other and there's no way back.!!WARNING!!This work is for Legends of Tomorrow, but I tagged Arrow as well because Olicity will have a part in it.I also suck at writing a summary.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was talking to my friend a few days ago and I asked her why there are no teacher/student avalance fics on here, so if nobody else is gonna write one, I will. This is also not proof read so any mistakes that are in here are my own. I was just really excited to get this on here.

She got up at 5.30am, jumping out of bed the moment her alarm went off and put on some jogging clothes, going for her usual morning run. Leaving the apartment, returning exactly 25 minutes later at 6 am. She went to the bathroom, where she took off the jogging clothes and threw them into the laundry basket. She turned on the shower and waited for the water to be the right temperature before stepping inside. She quickly washed her hair and body and was finished within five minutes. After she wrapped a towel around her body, she wrapped one around her wet hair and then walked into the kitchen to make herself some breakfast. A bowl of cereal, an apple and a glace of orange juice. When she finished her food, she went back to the bathroom and blow-dried her hair. Then she put on her clothes for the day, which was a navy-blue poly-blend pantsuit with a white shirt. She put her hair up into a neat bun at the back of her head and applied minimal make-up. Then after she put on her shoes, she put her watch on her wrist and took her briefcase, walking out her apartment and locking the door behind her. She walked to her car, a black Mercedes she bought when she graduated college 2 years ago. She was proud of it. She had saved a lot of money over the last 2 years of high school and the 3 years in college, so she could buy her own car once she was out of school.

She drove to Star City High, the school she’d be teaching at from today on. Sure, she was nervous, but she knew she’d be a good teacher. She had studied hard her entire life, never being happy with anything less than A’s, and she had always gotten them. Her teachers through the years loved her, telling the other students to take an example from her. That’s probably the reason she never had a lot of friends, because she’d always been busy with school, never went to parties and she just kept to herself in general. But she didn’t care about that. Her career was the single most important thing in her life, and she’d make sure she had a good one.

Pulling up in the teacher’s parking lot, she walked into the school after having parked the car, stepped out of it, and locked it. She was immediately greeted by, she assumed, one of the teachers.

“You must be the new teacher, Ava Sharpe.”

She faked a smile in return. “I am. And who might you be?”

“Oh, I’m Gary Green. Do you want me to introduce you to the other teachers?”

She nodded, not really seeing another way out.

“Okay, come on.”

She followed him, unsure of what else to do. They walked into a room where a lot of people were gathered in little groups, talking to one another, or sitting alone and doing other things.

She was amazed by how many people already were there. She had thought that at this time, there would be less people, but apparently not. But it was the first day of the new school year after all.

“This is Felicity Smoak, she teaches maths, and this is her husband Oliver Queen, he’s the PE teacher.”

She smiled at them. Felicity looked like a very nice person, but Oliver looked … like he might not be, until you knew him really well. And then still.

Felicity was the on who spoke up. “Hi, as Gary here said, I’m Felicity. It’s so nice to meet you.”

“Likewise. My name is Ava Sharpe.”

“Well, Ava, welcome to Star City High.” She nodded at Gary. “I’ll take it from here.” Gary walked away from them. “Sorry that he was the one you had to meet first. He can be a handful sometimes.”

Ava scoffed. “That’s the understatement of the year,” she said under her breath.

“Okay so, I’ll quickly point out all the teachers. We have Rip Hunter, history teacher,” she said, pointing to a guy with a long, beige trench coat. “That over there is Alex Danvers, she teaches physics. Caitlin Snow, biology teacher. Martin Stein is the chemistry teacher, and also the oldest of us all. Have you met the principal yet?” Ava shook her head. “Okay, I’ll take you to her office.”

They walked the short distance to the principal’s office and one they were there, Felicity knocked on the door.

“She might be the principal, but everyone just calls her Gideon. She’s very nice,” Felicity informed her right before the door to the office opened.

“Hello, Gideon. This is Ava Sharpe, she’s the new teacher.”

“Well, hello, Ms. Sharpe,” the woman said, “As I can see, you’ve already met Felicity. Have you met the others yet?”

She nodded. “I have.”

“Then I’m sure Felicity will want to give you a tour of the buildings. If you ever need anything, I’m in my office most of the time, but you might walk into me in the school halls as well. Good luck today.”

“Thank you.”

 

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

 

She groaned as her alarm went off. Why? Why was school ever invented?

She aggressively turned the alarm off and rolled out of bed. She slowly made her way over to her bathroom, not intending on getting herself ready any faster than usually. She brushed her teeth and then brushed her hair, putting it into a messy bun on top of her head. She had showered the night before, so she wouldn’t have to bother doing that this morning. She threw on a grey tank top with a pair of black jeans and topped it off with a black leather jacket. She also put on her favorite pair of ankle boots and then walked downstairs. She was greeted by the smell of freshly made pancakes. Her sister was already sitting at the table as her dad put pancakes onto plate and handed them to her.

“Good morning,” her dad said.

“Morning.”

“You excited to go back to school?”

“So excited.” She rolled her eyes.

“Well, it’s your last first day of school. Aren’t you happy about that?”

“I’m especially happy about the fact that after this year, I’ll finally be out of that hell hole.”

“And then you’re going to college,” Laurel spoke up. “Any idea what you want to do yet?”

“Nope,” she said, popping the ‘p’ as she sat herself down on one of the other chairs around the table. She grabbed her phone and started playing a random game, waiting for the next batch of pancakes to be put in front of her.

She received a text from Zari just as she was about to put her phone away.

_‘Hey, you up yet? If so, you heard the latest news?’_

‘What news?’

_‘Oh, good, you’re up. There’s a new teacher.’_

Sara smirked.

‘Well, I sincerely hope that he or she is well prepared.’

After that, she put her phone away and ate the pancakes that were put in front of her. When she finished them, she went back upstairs and took the backpack she had made the day before. The only reason her backpack was even ready was because her sister cared about her a lot and had made her backpack for her, saying she should do her best in school so she’d have a good career. Sara had only rolled her eyes at that, not really having listened to any of the things her sister had told her.

She then walked outside and waited for her other friend, Amaya, to pick her up.

It wasn’t even five minutes later when Amaya pulled up to the Lance’s house. Sara got in and sighed loudly.

“What’s up?”

“Laurel keeps telling me to do my best at school, even though she knows well enough that won’t help.”

“I know you won’t, but maybe you should listen to your sister.”

She groaned. “Not you too, please.”

“Okay, okay, let’s just get to school instead.”

“Great idea,” she said, sarcasm clearly noticeable in her words.

The drive to school was a short one. They had picked Zari up as well because they passed by her house and they met up with the boys in the school parking lot.

“Hey, Ray, where’s your girlfriend?” was the first thing Sara said.

“Nora is _not_ my girlfriend.”

“The fact that you thought I was talking about Nora only makes it look more suspicious.”

“Whatever.”

The group all hugged each other, and Mick groaned. The rest just laughed. They walked into the school and the other students quickly got out of the way, pulling the freshmen with them, knowing well enough what would happen if they didn’t. All of them smirked, the students moving out of the way just another reassuring sign of the fact that they ruled the school.

“You ready for the last year of hell?” Sara asked

“Hell yes. I’m so ready to get out of this place,” Zari replied, a smile plastered on her face.

“Aren’t we all?” Jax spoke up.

They all nodded in agreement.

“Who’s gonna go get our schedules?”

“Mick and I will go,” Ray said, his voice way too cheerful to anyone’s liking.

“Alright. They better have us in all the same classes or I’m going to be mad. And you all know how I get when I’m mad.”

 

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

 

It was Ava’s last period of the day. She had liked the entire day already, finally being able to do what she worked so hard for all through her life. But she was so ready to go home. Teaching was tiring. Especially on the first day of the school year. She already had a whole list of names she’d have to remember already. It would take a while until she knew all of them.

_‘Just one more class’_ she thought. She straightened her outfit and waited for the students to come in the room. Most of them greeted her, except for this one girl and, she assumed, her group of friends. She thought it wasn’t very polite, but let it go.

“Hello, everyone. As you may or may not already know, I am Ms. Sharpe. I will be your English teacher for this year.” The class groaned. “Now, I know this is your senior year, and I know that probably no one likes school, and surely not this class, but I want you all to pay attention in class and do your best. If you get good grades, it will help you get into more colleges and then you can get a better career when you grow up.”

She saw the girl from earlier talking to another girl but decided to ignore it for the time being. She’d get back at her later.

“I know that you probably have had to do this all day already, but I want you all to quickly introduce yourself. I want you to tell me your full name, where you’re from and what your hobbies are. We’ll start in the back and make our way to the front.”

She pointed to a person to start.

“Hi, my name is Nathaniel Heywood, but everyone calls me Nate. I’m originally from Central City, but I moved here when I was young. I love everything that has to do with history so in me free time I’m usually just looking up different events that happened all throughout history, from all over the world.”

Ava nodded and moved to the next person.

“Hello, my name is Amaya Jiwe. I was born here in Star City, but my parents are from Zambezi. My hobby is dancing and fighting.”

Then Ava came to the girl who she had decided to ignore earlier.

“My name Is Sara Lance. I was born here, and my hobby is sleeping.”

Ava had to keep herself from laughing. This girl was going to be trouble.

“My name is Zari Tomaz. I was born in Iran and I moved here about ten years ago. My favorite thing to go is playing video games and creating my own computer software.”

They went around the class until everyone had introduced themselves. Ava was impressed by how many people weren’t originally from Star City. She was shocked by how far some of them had had to travel just to move to the place she had lived in her entire life.

“Well, now that’s dealt with, I’ll hand out some sheets that we will start working on tomorrow, seeing as there are only ten minutes of class left. You can take a look at them and maybe fill out the things you already know. You must keep quiet until the bell rings unless you want detention on your first day of school.”

Everyone immediately looked at the sheets she handed out, clearly neither of them wanting to stay behind. Except for, if she remembered correctly, Sara Lance. She just looked at Ava with a smirk on her face, not intending on getting to work anytime soon.

Ava ignored it once again, deciding she would talk to her when class ended.

When the bell rang, everyone hurried to get out of the room, not wanting to stay at school a second longer than necessary.

“Miss Lance, a word please?”

She could see the girl groaning and then say something to her friends, who found whatever she said amusing. Sara leaned back against one of the tables and looked at Ava the entire time, as if she was going to kill the woman.

Once everyone was out of the room, Ava sat down behind her desk.

“So, Miss Lance, I noticed that you very much enjoy talking to your friends during class. You also didn’t say anything when you first entered the room, which would be considered rude.”

Sara smirked but didn’t answer. Ava was losing her patience.

“Look, I will let it go because it’s the first day, but I expect better behavior tomorrow or you’ll have to stay behind. Okay?”

“What’s your first name?”

Ava was taken aback. What was wrong with this girl? Did she not hear what she had just said?

“What?”

“I asked, what’s your first name?”

“That is absolutely none of your business.”

“Well, if I’m gonna get detention, I’d like to know the full name of the teacher who I got it by. I know no teacher can stand me.”

“We’ll see about that. See you tomorrow in class, Miss Lance.”

Sara scoffed and walked out the room, as Ava just sat back and wondered what the hell just happened.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sara tries to figure out Ms. Sharpe's first name. Ava comes home and sees some pictures she shouldn't. The next day, Sara is being a rebel during class and gets detention.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea how the American school system works. I'm just using things I know and writing the way it works here. So sorry if there are any mistakes in here, I just really wanted to get this up.

When Sara came home that day, the first thing she did was go upstairs, throw her backpack on the floor, grab her laptop and plop down on the couch. She went to the school’s website and looked through the list of teachers, searching for the woman who was her new English teacher. But she didn’t find anyone with the last name ‘Sharpe’. _‘They probably didn’t update it yet’_ she thought. She knew she could just wait until they would eventually update the list, but she wasn’t patient enough to do that. She went to Instagram, did some research, but found nothing. Neither did she find something on Twitter or Facebook.

Looking at the time and seeing it was almost 6 pm already, she decided to give up. She grabbed her phone instead and played some random game until her dad called her to eat dinner.

“Hey, honey, how was school?”

She rolled her eyes. “It was fine, I guess. There’s a new teacher.”

“Oh, is he fun?”

“She”, Sara corrected, “and no, she is not. She’s going to make my life a living hell with that polyblend pantsuit.”

“Well, if you behave, then I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“But I can at least have a little fun and not follow the rules. I mean, I’ve never followed the rules, why would I start now?”

“There will always be rules, in college, at your future job, everywhere. And you’ll not always like them, but you’ll have to follow them anyway.”

“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes and started eating, eager to go back to her room.

 

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

 

Ava came home to her apartment and threw herself on the couch. It had been a long, tiring day. Although she had enjoyed every class, the last one was different. All because of one person. Sara Lance. She already knew that she was going to be trouble. But she had a few ideas on how to make her pay attention in class, if she didn’t want detention, even though she knew that she probably didn’t mind that.

She took her phone and looked Sara up. She quickly found her Instagram profile. _‘Not private, huh?’_ she smirked and scrolled through the pictures, reading the captions of some of them. But it wasn’t long before she wished she hadn’t. The picture she saw was one she shouldn’t have seen, but now couldn’t unsee. Sara was in it with two other girls, Zari and Amaya, if she remembered well. They were at the beach and were all wearing bikinis. _‘Well damn’_ she thought.

Before she could inspect the picture any more, she quickly threw her phone aside, deciding she had already seen too much. Instead, she took her school stuff and started preparing tomorrow’s classes.

About half way through, she started feeling hungry and decided to get some take-out, because cooking was not something she was feeling like doing. She set her mind on getting pizza, because she loved pizza. But then again, who doesn’t?

After she ordered food, she continued her work and only stopped when the pizza arrived about half an hour later. She plopped down on her couch again and turned on her tv, going to Netflix and scrolling through the endless number of movies that were on there. Eventually, she decided on watching _‘The Fate of the Furious’_ , because she absolutely loved all the _‘Fast and Furious’_ movies. She wasn’t that much of a car fan, but she just enjoyed the story line.

About half way through the movie, she just stopped paying any attention, not like she was paying a lot of attention before, because she was so caught up in her own mind after the pictures she saw. She kind of wished she hadn’t seen those pictures because there’s no way in hell any teacher should see any student like that. But she also didn’t regret – was that the right word? – seeing it because she had to admit, she had never seen abs like Sara’s. She figured that she must work out a lot, which wouldn’t be that weird.

Ava only realized how long she had been thinking about the picture when the credits of the movie started rolling over the screen. Quickly trying to get her mind to think about something else, she shut off the tv and threw away the now empty pizza box. She grabbed a glass from the cupboard and poured herself some wine. When she put the bottle back in the fridge where it belonged, she realized that it was pretty much empty, besides some cheese and some juice. Going to the grocery store now would most certainly help her think about something else and thank god for grocery stores that are open 24 hours a day.

So that’s exactly what she did. After quickly making a list of things she needed the most, she threw on her jacket and went to her car, driving to the store that was about a mile away from her house. Once she was parked, she walked inside and took a shopping cart.

Ava slowly strolled down every aisle, taking her time to fins everything she needed and a little more, because why not?

She wasn’t really paying attention where she was going, being too busy looking for her favorite chocolate, when she ran her cart into someone.

“Oh my God, I am so sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going, it’s totally my fault.” The person turned around. “Oh, it’s you.”

Sara smirked. “Fancy seeing you here, Ms. Sharpe.”

“I could say the same about you.” She looked at the watch on her wrist. “It’s almost 11 pm. You should be in bed, or at least getting ready to go to bed.”

“So should you,” Sara fired back at her. “And besides, my dad forgot to bring chocolate when he went to the grocery store this afternoon. And I can’t sleep without eating it first.”

“Of course,” she muttered under her breath.

“And you obviously haven’t went grocery shopping in a while,” Sara said, nodding at her almost full cart. Ava just stared at her. “Well, I’ve got to get going. Wouldn’t want to be in my bed too late and upset my teacher,” Sara smirked. “I’ll be seeing you, Ms. Sharpe.” And she walked away. Ava just stood there, wondering what had just happened.

It took her a few seconds to continue her way through the store, and when she did, she only picked up a few more things before making her way to the checkout, paying for everything, and loading it in her car.

Once she was back home, she restocked the fridge and filled her cabinets.

Deciding it was time to go to sleep, she changed into a tank top and shorts and took her hair out of the bun it was still in. She lay down on her bed and played a game on her phone for a few minutes before putting it away after turning on her alarm, even though she knew she would probably wake up before that.

 

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

 

Sara came home after she went to the grocery store and plopped down on the couch after turning on the tv. She quickly opened the pack of chocolate she bought and ate it all at once, thinking about seeing her teacher earlier that night. She had been amused by the way her Ms. Sharpe’s face had changed when she had seen her.

Sara was intending on not making it easy for her, having a reputation to uphold and she wasn’t going to let anyone stop her. She needed to show that she’d do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted.

After she watched an episode of her favorite show, she went off to bed, turned on her alarm. She pulled the sheets up, having them cover her ears as well. It took a while for her to start drifting off, only falling asleep way past 2 am.

 

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

 

“Hey bitches,” Zari greeted Sara and Amaya.

“Hey Z,” Amaya replied.

Sara rolled her eyes. _‘Get a room already’_ she thought. She knew Zari and Amaya weren’t dating, and that Amaya was dating Nate, but she also saw the way her friends looked at each other and she knew they both were bisexual.

“Where are the boys though?”

“Hm, I don’t know. Nate told me him, Mick and Wally would be later, but he didn’t say why. And I have no idea where Ray is.”

“Well, obviously he’s with Nora.”

“Obviously. I don’t know why he hasn’t admitted it yet.”

“Because he just doesn’t want us to tease him about it, even though he knows it doesn’t help because we’ll do it anyway.”

It was then that they saw the boys arriving, Nate, Wally and Mick laughing while Ray’s cheeks were flushed.

“Guess what?” Nate announced once they reached the girls.”

What?” they replied, all at the same time.

“Ray here has _finally_ admitted he’s dating Nora.”

“Well, that was about time.”

“Okay okay, just, let it go, please?”

“You know we won’t, but alright. Just for now.”

Ray just sighed and all of them laughed, patting him on the back before making their way over to their first class, which was starting soon, and even though they all hated school, with the exception of Ray, they still wanted to be on time.

Their first class was English. Surprisingly, they were the first students to walk into the classroom, Ms. Sharpe already being there and rolling her eyes when she saw Sara smirk at her.

“So, Ms. Sharpe, how was late night grocery shopping? Did you happen to run into someone familiar?”

“Well, Ms. Lance, I did in fact.”

“Doesn’t that sound interesting? You must’ve really liked that person if you ran your cart into them.”

“I simply wasn’t watching where I was going, and you just happened to stand in the way. I still don’t know what you were doing there though.”

“I told you my dad forgot to bring chocolate.”

Ava scoffed as the bell rang and the rest of the students walked into the room, interrupting the two from continuing their conversation.

“Good morning. I hope you’re all ready for the classes to really start and I hope you didn’t forget the sheets I handed out yesterday.”

Everyone but Sara took out the sheets and put them on their desk. Sara just sat there, not moving and a smirk on her face.

“Miss Lance, where are yours?”

“I forgot them at home.”

Ava rolled her eyes. “I’ll let it slide for this one time, but I won’t next time. Just take a piece of paper and write the answers on there.”

 

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

 

“First you don’t bring your sheets and now you’re on your phone. That’s detention for you.”

Sara looked up to see Ms. Sharpe staring down at her.

“I’m sorry miss, I’ll never do it again.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Sara laughed to herself. She didn’t mind going to detention. She’d just sit there and do nothing for an hour. If it was with Mr. Green, she’d just be on her phone the entire time because the man was too intimidated by her to do anything about it.

 

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

 

“Well guys, I’ll see you tomorrow. I’m going to detention. Pray for met it’s Mr. Green who’s there.” Sara laughed. “We all know he’s scared of me.” She waved at her friends one last time before walking into the detention room.

 _‘Well, shit’_ she thought as she saw Ms. Sharpe sitting at the desk, smirking at Sara when she entered the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for taking so long, but this chapter came together so slowly. And when I wanted to finish this yesterday, Caity replied to my tweet and I just couldn't write anymore. I was crying happy tears and that's literally the only thing I cared about in that moment.
> 
> I'll try to rite the next chapter asap, but no promises. I've got this whole fic planned out until like chapter 12 already, and it's gonna get really good (well, that's what I think anyway) but also sad...


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sara has detention, but it ends in a way she didn't expect. She talks to her sister about it. Her friends tell her she should give her English teacher a little credit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have checked half of this chapter for mistakes and then I got bored of it. So hehehehehe here you go.

“So, miss Lance, it appears you are the only person who managed to get detention on the second day of the school year,” Ava said as Sara entered the room and sat down at one of the desks.

“Could also be because you’re the only one who’s already giving detention,” Sara fought back. She was not going to let her teacher tell her what to do.

“True. Although you’re probably the only student who’s already misbehaving.”

“Yeah, that’s also true. But oh well. You only live once, right?”

“Hm,” Ava considered what to say for a moment. Sara clearly had her answers ready and she didn’t want to start a fight with one of her students. “Just get something out to keep yourself busy with, besides your phone of course. You’ve got 54 minutes left to kill.”

Ava turned to the sheets she had laid out in front of her and started working on them, not noticing Sara rolling her eyes at her.

Sara, on the other hand, propped her feet up on the desk instead of doing any work. She crossed her arms over her chest and looked out the window. It was only after a good twenty minutes that Ms. Sharpe had noticed she wasn’t doing anything.

“I could always give you something to work on if you don’t have anything to do.”

“Nah, I’m good. I think I’ll stick to doing nothing.”

“You know, I wonder why you’re like this.”

“Like what?”

“This… I don’t know how to put it. You seem like you want everyone to hate you.”

“Oh, on the contrary, everyone loves me. I’ve got every boy and girl running behind me because they want to be with me. That’s just who I am.”

“I don’t think that’s true. I’ve met you yesterday and you haven’t made it easy so far, but I don’t think you are who you pretend to be.”

“Then who do you think I am?”

“I think that you’re just someone who built a reputation for herself because she’s afraid of getting hurt, afraid of people letting her down once they see the real her. I think you pretend to be someone you’re not because people in the past have wronged you and that’s why you put on a mask every day. Well, let me tell you something. Take off the mask, show people the real you. If they don’t accept you, that’s their loss. I put on a mask my whole life and that’s gotten me nowhere. Sure, I had good grades in school and college, and that has helped me to get this job, but in social life, I have no one. My parents died, I had few friends because all I cared about were good grades. That’s what I thought was the most important thing. But it’s not. Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t do your best to get them, because you should, but you also should stop pretending to be this person, this character you’ve created for yourself.”

Sara was at a loss for words. Had this woman really just told her what to do and who to be?

“Look, I don’t care about who you think I am. This is just me, the person I have always been. I haven’t created some character that I pretend to be. I’m just who I am. You have known me for _2 days_. You don’t get to judge me and tell me what to do. In fact, no one does. Not my dad, not my sister, most certainly not a teacher. Yes, people have upset me in the past, yes, people have hurt me. But that didn’t change me as a person. I have always been like this. And I don’t care whether you like that or not. You’re just a teacher and you’re not supposed to tell me what to do and who to be.”

This time, it was Ava’s turn to be speechless. She knew she should’ve just kept her mouth shut, but she really thought it could help Sara. Apparently, she was wrong.

“I’m out of here,” Sara mumbled under her breath and took her backpack, swung it over her shoulder and walked out the room.

Ava had wanted to call after her, tell her detention wasn’t over yet, but had decided it was best to keep her mouth shut, already having pushed her far enough.

What the hell had she just done? Had she really just told a student what to do? And it had been Sara. That made it even worse. She shouldn’t have done that. She knew she shouldn’t have and now she felt bad. Why had she been so stupid? She knew better than this, knew better then to do what she just did. But she did it anyway, didn’t she?

She had been staring at the door for a few minutes before turning away and putting away her stuff, deciding it would be better if she left as well.

The entire way back to her apartment, she was unable to think about anything else than what had just happened.

At home, all she did was sit on her couch and stare at the wall behind her tv. It looked so empty, like something was missing. And that’s when she realized that her apartment didn’t really feel like home, that it was just the place she lived in. After she had first picked out this place, she hadn’t really thought about it, being ready to finally live in an apartment of her own, not some dorm room she had to share with another person whom she didn’t like. But now she realized that this wasn’t her home. She didn’t have anyone to share her apartment with, didn’t have anybody to come home to. Because, she now realized, home wasn’t ever going to be a place, but a person. A person she hadn’t found yet. A person she may never find.

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

She threw her backpack on the floor once she was inside her house and ran up the stairs to her room. Her dad was still at work and she didn’t know where her sister was, and she honestly didn’t care. She allowed herself to fall backwards on her bed and then curled up in a little ball.

Her teacher had been right, and she knew that, but that didn’t mean she wanted to face the truth. It’s true that she pretended to be someone she’s not. It’s not like she wanted every person to want her. If she was being honest, she hated that everyone did.

All she wanted was to be normal, would rather not be the popular kid, but she was, and there’s nothing she could do about that.

She also wanted to behave at school, she liked most teachers even if she said she didn’t. The only reason she even said that was because of her reputation.

If she’d start acting differently now, she knew people would hate on her and she just couldn’t have that, knew that she wouldn’t be able to handle that.

As she thought about that, she heard the front door open and close. Realizing that it was still too early for her dad to be home, she knew that it was her sister.

She decided that it might be a good thing to talk to her and walked out of her room and down the stairs.

“Hey, Laurel.”

“Hey.”

“So, uhm, I had to go to detention.”

“It’s the second day of the school year and you already got detention? Congratulations to you.”

“Yeah whatever, that’s not what I wanted to talk about.”

“Then what do you want to talk about?”

“Okay so, detention was with the new teacher, Ms. Sharpe, and she said something, but I got mad and then I kind of ran out of the room.”

“Okay so, first of all, are we talking about Ava Sharpe?”

“I don’t know her first name, so I wouldn’t know.”

“Well, I met Ava last year and she told me she was a teacher but didn’t have any work yet. She’s a great person though.”

Sara scoffed. “Yeah sure she’s a great person.” She rolled her eyes.

“Anyway, what did she say?”

“She told me that I pretended to be someone I’m not, which I mean, it’s true, but that doesn’t mean she’s allowed to say it out of nowhere.”

“Okay let me tell you something, I know Ava and she didn’t say that to hurt you, but she told you that because she wanted to help you. I know she can be straight to the point sometimes and sometimes the way she says things isn’t the best way. If she told you to not be someone you’re not, then she probably also told you about how her life during school was and that it wasn’t the best, having very few friends because she always wanted perfect grades.”

Sara nodded. “She did. And I know that she probably didn’t intend to hurt me, but she did anyway. And I mean, she met me yesterday, it’s not like she knows me already.”

“Ava’s very good at reading people, usually being able to know a lot about them with only one look.”

“Yeah, well, she was right, but I just … I don’t know.”

“Look, you know what, go apologize to her tomorrow. I’m sure she already feels really bad about what she did. If you go to her and apologize, she will apologize to you as well and maybe you’ll come to not get detention anymore.”

“There’s no way in hell I’m going to apologize to her. I did nothing wrong, she did.”

Laurel sighed.

“There’s no use continuing this conversation if you’re not prepared to listen. I’m going to my room.”

“Okay, bye,” Sara said harshly. Why did she think talking to her sister was a good idea? The only good thing that had come out of the conversation was that she now knew Ms. Sharpe’s first name.

Instead of doing anything school related, she just watched some tv until her dad came home.

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

The following day was weird to say the least. Sara had paid even less attention during class than she had the two previous days. Her friends had noticed this, but she hadn’t told them what happened during detention the day before, only saying that she didn’t care about school.

But her friends weren’t stupid. They had noticed something more was going on than just _not caring about school_. They knew that Sara would eventually tell them, or at least tell Amaya and Zari because she knew they could keep it to themselves, something the boys couldn’t, especially not Ray.

“Now it’s time for your favorite class of the day,” Zari said as she, Sara and Amaya were walking to their lockers. The boys were off doing God knows what, and they honestly didn’t care.

“Yes, obviously English is my favorite class, especially with Ms. Sharpe.” Sara rolled her eyes and threw her locker shut. “She’s so annoying. Like, you don’t even know.”

“Nah, I think she’s pretty nice,” Zari replied, and Amaya nodded in agreement.

“What is wrong with you people? Am I really the only one who thinks she’s the worst teacher ever?” Her friends nodded, at which Sara only shook her head and made her way to English, the two other girls following behind her.

“You should give her a little credit, Sara.”

“Why? Because she claims she has no friends? Because she told me that I’m not who I pretend to be?”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah, she lectured me yesterday during detention, saying that I’m pretending to be this character I’ve created for myself. Still think I should give her a little credit?”

Both Amaya and Zari were speechless. They knew Sara was different at school than she was at home, total opposites, actually.

“Oh my God, Sara, we didn’t know, we’re so sorry.”

“Yeah whatever.” She walked into the classroom and saw Ava behind her desk. “Ms. Sharpe, hey, how was your day?”

Ava looked up from whatever was on her desk. “Miss Lance, Miss Tomaz, Miss Jiwe, good to see you’re all on time. Take a seat. Class starts in a few.”

They sat in the back, of course they sat in the back, they always did

Sara kept looking at her teacher. How could this woman be so cold? She understood why she had very few friends, she wouldn’t want someone like her as her friend either.

She got a lost in her mind as class started and was pulled out of it when the bell rang, indicating the end of the lesson.

“Miss Lance, a word please?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so, this chapter came out very easily and idk why. But I actually intended for this to be totally different and some things that I've written in this chapter will have major consequences for the rest of this story, but don't worry, I still think it will be good. 
> 
> I also wanted to try and write ahead a bit, but my friend basically forced me to get this up because she's a jerk.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ava apologises to Sara. Felicity invites Ava over for dinner with her and Oliver. They talk about Sara.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been so busy with school and didn't have any time to write during the week. This chapter is also the shortest one so far and I don't really know if I like it (it's not really an important one anyway), but it's because I have big plans for next chapter. I'll try to update again soon, no promises tho.
> 
> Not proof read because there was a certain jerk who was basically begging me to get it up and I couldn't say no, now could I?

“Yes, Ms. Sharpe?” Sara said once the other students had left.

“I wanted to apologize for yesterday. I shouldn’t have done what I did and I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted. I guess.”

“Look, I don’t know you, and what I said was really not okay and you probably hate me now.”

“Not more than I already did,” Sara muttered under her breath, not wanting Ava to hear it, but she did anyway.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Can I go now, or do you have anything else to say, _Ava_?”

“What, how do you know my first name?”

“Laurel told me.”

“Laurel’s your sister?”

“Yeah.”

“Talking about opposites.”

“Can I go now? I’ve got another class to get to, you know.”

“Yeah you can go.”

Sara left the room, without saying another word. She knew that her teacher’s apologies were sincere, but she honestly didn’t care. The words had been said, and there was nothing she could do to change that. And although she had accepted the apologies, she still hated Ava.

She quickly made her way to her next class, math with Ms. Smoak. She did like Ms. Smoak. Kind of. It’s not like she paid more attention than during any other class. The only class she really paid attention in was PE, with Mr. Queen, Ms. Smoak’s husband. She thought they made a cute couple. And the only reason she paid attention during PE was because it was the only class she wasn’t expected to sit still.

“I’m sorry I’m late, Ms. Smoak, Ms. Sharpe wanted to see me after class even though I did not wrong.”

“Just go sit somewhere, Sara, it’s fine.”

She saw there was a spot left beside Amaya and walked over there before sitting down.

“You okay?” Amaya asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Ms. Sharpe was being an ass. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

Amaya chuckled. “Yeah sure. I’m pretty sure there was a reason for that.”

Sara glared at her friend. “Whatever.”

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

“Hey, Ava, I have a question for you,” Felicity walked up to her. It had been over a week since she had apologized to Sara, over a week since she had done something she shouldn’t have. The past week and a half had been filled with Sara paying even less attention during class and that had most certainly pissed Ava off, but she had only given her detention once after she had caught Sara on her phone, but if she was being honest, she didn’t even care anymore. She would just teach the students who actually paid attention, which, if she thought about it, only were a few.

“Hey, Felicity. Shoot.”

“Okay so, Oliver and I were, well more me than Oliver, but anyway, we were wondering if you wanted to come over for dinner tomorrow.”

“Oh. Yeah, sure, of course. I’d love to.”

“Great. I’ll text you our address.”

“At what time should I come?”

“Oh, uhm, maybe around 7?”

“Sounds good. See you tomorrow, Felicity.”

“Bye, Ava.”

She smiled at her one last time before she walked out the school and to her car. She was so ready to go, change into sweats and do nothing for the rest of the day. It was Friday, so she could prepare classes during the weekend.

As she was driving home, she sang along to the songs playing on the radio. She wouldn’t consider herself a bad singer, but she wouldn’t describe herself as a good one either.

Once she arrived at her apartment, she threw her things aside, pulled her hair out of its bun and combed through it with her fingers, then she took off her blazer before removing her shoes as well. She sighed. As much as she loved her job, she loved coming home on Friday even more because it meant weekend and not doing as much.

Deciding she wanted to relax a bit, she walked into her bathroom and filled her bathtub, throwing in a bath bomb before stripping down. When the tub was full, she stepped in and sighed, allowing her body to relax in the warm water.

She let her mind wander into thinking about the events that occurred the past week, which weren’t that many to start with, coming to think of it. Her days basically all looked the same; getting ready for work in the morning, going to school, teaching her classes, and going back home. Her weekends were usually boring, mostly being filled by doing even more work.

Her life was rather boring, really. It was almost as if she was a robot or clone of some kind. Hell, sometimes she had dreams about her being a clone from the future.

But she knew she was just a regular person, a normal human being and she knew she wasn’t the only one with a boring life. There were plenty of people out there with a life similar to hers.

Once the water started cooling down, she stepped out of the tub and wrapped a towel around her. She put on some sweatpants and a tank top after drying herself off and then walked into her living room.

Before she plopped down on her couch, she quickly made herself some grilled cheeses. This time, she settled on watching a tv show rather than a movie. As she scrolled through the various shows on Netflix, she decided she wanted to watch a show she had never watched before and clicked on the one with the prettiest poster.

Half way throughout the first episode, she found herself bored and quit watching it, instead deciding on re-watching some episodes of her favorite show of all times.

She must’ve watched quite a few episodes because the next thing she knew was waking up on the couch in the middle of the night.

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

She put on a black dress that stopped mid-thigh and applied a little more make-up than usual. It was around 6.15 and she was getting ready to go over to Felicity and Oliver’s house to have dinner with them.

Naturally, she was kind of nervous because she didn’t know these people for very long and for all she knew they could still be killers. Although she highly doubted that. Well, she didn’t think Felicity was. Oliver might lead a second life as a vigilante.

She decided to go off on her instincts and give them the benefit of the doubt. They were her colleagues after all and she should have a little faith in them.

When she finished getting ready, she walked out the door and went to her car, putting in the address Felicity sent her into her GPS and then drove off.

She arrived at her destination about 20 minutes later, quickly checking her phone before she stepped out of her car. She hadn’t even knocked when the door opened.

“Hey, sorry, I was waiting for you to arrive. Come on in, Oliver’s in the kitchen.”

“Oliver cooks?”

“Yeah, I can’t even make an omelet, he always tells me I’ve failed them whenever I try to make one.”

“Oh,” was all Ava replied. “I brought this,” she said, handing Felicity the bottle of wine she had bought earlier that day.

“You didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to.”

The two women smiled at each other and then entered, Felicity closing the door behind them.

They greeted Oliver, who told them dinner would be ready soon and that they could go sit if they wanted to.

“You have a lovely house,” Ava said as Oliver put a plate in front of her and his wife. “And this food looks really good. Thank you for inviting me over.”

“Really, the pleasure is all ours.” Ava smiled at them and waited to start eating until Oliver sat down at the table as well.

“Okay, I have a question, you both have Sara Lance in your class, right?”

“Yes, we do.”

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

“Does she pay any attention during class? Because she doesn’t during mine and I don’t know, it seems like however much I threaten to give her detention, it doesn’t seem to bother her. On the contrary, it just seems to encourage her even more to pay even less attention.”

“I’ve come to learn that giving her detention just doesn’t work. I just leave her be. It’s her future, not mine. I know her dad and I’ve told him a bunch of times to talk to his daughter, but even though he tells her to do her best, she doesn’t.”

“Well, Sara is a good student during PE. In fact, she has the best grades out of all other students. Best student I’ve had in a while now.” Ava and Felicity both glare at Oliver. “What? It’s true.”

“Oliver, honey, I love you, but she’s literally the worst student ever.”

“I have to agree with Felicity on this one.”

Felicity looked at Ava. “He’s my husband.”

“Oh God, not on the ‘I love you’ part, God no. I’m not really the husband kind.”

“Oh,” was all Felicity responded.

It was quiet for a few seconds before Oliver cleared his throat. “Who wants dessert?”

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

“Zari, I’m telling you, she really does hate me, and she shouldn’t even be allowed to be a teacher.”

“Why not? I think she’s pretty good.”

“I’ve told you what she’s done last week. That wasn’t something a teacher is supposed to do, and you know it.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t think there’s anything I can do about that really. You could try and pay some more attention and then maybe, just maybe, you’ll see she actually isn’t that bad.”

“Yeah right,” Sara scoffed

“Look,” Zari sighed, “my brother is asking me to help him with something, so I got to go, but I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“Yeah, whatever. See ya, love ya.”

“Love ya, bye.”

Sara ended the call and rolled onto her back. Zari was the only person who had nothing to do that night, the only person who Sara could talk to for hours in the phone. Amaya was out of town for the weekend, Ray took Nora out for a date, and Wally, Mick and Nate were having a guys’ night.

She looked up at the ceiling, not really knowing what to do. Her dad was at work and her sister was on a date with her boyfriend. She thought about watching something on tv, but soon realized she had already watched everything she wanted to watch. Doing homework was out of the question. She wouldn’t spend a Friday night doing that.

So instead, Sara just lay there, on her back, on her bed, doing absolutely nothing.

And for a moment, it was peaceful. For a moment, she just let everything go. For a moment, she cleared her head and didn’t think of anything.

But when that moment ended, her world came crashing down.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sara breaks down in front of Ava after something terrible happened the week before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should warn you because you're probably gonna want to kill me at first, and honestly I hate myself for even writing it, but it's necessary for the rest of the story.  
> Didn't check for mistakes. As usual.

One call, that’s all it took for her world to come crashing down. She knew, the moment her dad called her, that something bad must’ve happened. He sounded as if he were crying, and Sara knew well enough that her dad barely cried.

When she had picked up the phone, the first thing he had said was, “Get to the hospital. It’s serious.”

She had had no idea what was going on, no idea how she was going to get to the hospital. It was too far to run there.

Giving it no thought, she had called Zari and just yelled at her to come pick her up and drive her to the hospital. She hadn’t even given her friend any time to ay anything before she had ended the call.

While she had been waiting, she had paced the house up and down. Not knowing what had happened annoyed her, but she mostly was afraid. Afraid that something really bad may have happened. That’s what her gut told her anyway.

And her gut had been right.

The moment she arrived at the hospital and saw her dad with tears stained on his face, she knew it was bad.

“Dad, what’s going on? What’s happening?”

“Lau- Laurel, she got into an accident.”

“What?” She refused to believe what her father just said.

“I’m sorry, baby. They have her in surgery right now.”

“She’s going to make it, right? She has to, I can’t lose her, dad. I can’t lose Laurel.” That was the moment Sara broke down crying. Her father caught her and held her in his arms as his own tears started rolling his face again.

Why? That was the only question on Sara’s mind. She couldn’t imagine losing her sister, couldn’t imagine a life without being able to talk to her. She never cried, but now she just couldn’t stop the tears from coming.

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

It must’ve been hours later when a doctor finally came. Sara’s tears had dried on her cheeks, sleep was haunting her, but the moment she saw the doctor, she was wide awake again.

“We did everything we could, I’m sorry.”

And then the tears came again. She cried into her father’s shoulder, him wrapping his arms around her and crying with her.

The doctor just stood there, not wanting to interrupt them, but not yet done talking. He knew that this was the worst news to bring, but he had to anyway.

“There is something else.”

Quentin looked up, Sara still crying into his shoulder. “What?”

“During the surgery, we discovered your daughter was pregnant. It was still very early on and your daughter herself probably didn’t even know yet, but we thought we should tell you.”

That seemed to shock him, and Sara looked up. “Laurel was pregnant?”

The doctor just nodded. “I’m really sorry for your loss.” And with that, he walked away, deciding it was better to give them some time.

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

When Monday came around, Sara got ready for school. Well, she put on clothes and ate something, took her backpack, and walked to school. She wasn’t excited to go to school before Friday happened, but now she was even less excited to do so. She wasn’t ready to talk to other people or pay the little attention she did in class.

The only people who knew about her sister were Amaya and Zari, because she needed to talk to someone. She hadn’t really told anyone how she really felt though, not really seeing the point in doing that. Her sister was gone, and that was it. There was nothing more to say about it.

When she arrived at school and walked inside, everyone looked at her, pity visible in their eyes. Pity was the last thing she needed right now, but she ignored it, deciding it wasn’t worth to waste her energy snapping at them.

As she sat in English, her first class of the day, all she did was look at the note block in front of her, not listening to anything the teacher was saying.

And it went on like that for all the following classes.

She came home and didn’t say anything to her dad, who was sitting at the table staring at nothing in particular. All she did was go upstairs and lie on her bed.

Right in that moment, she couldn’t care less about her life anymore. She had lost her sister, the person she talked to whenever she wanted to and the person who had been by her side her entire life. The person she had loved since the moment she was born. The person she had fought with countless of times, but always made up with at the end of the day, because she was her sister. She had spent nights sitting on her bed, talking to Laurel about whatever came to their minds. She was the one she first came out to after she had realized she wasn’t only interested in boys, the one whose shoulder she had cried into when her first girlfriend broke up with her.

But now, she wouldn’t be able to do any of that anymore because Laurel was gone. For good

Then she realized that she would’ve become an aunt. That made her smile for a second before the tears took over again.

She doesn’t think she ever felt so alone in that moment, just like she didn’t think she ever cried more than she did in the past three days.

She felt empty and lost, helpless and scared, all sorts of feeling she usually never had. But she did now, and she had no idea what to do about it.

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

Something was most definitely going on. Ava had noticed during class. Sara had never really paid a lot of attention during class, but now she didn’t at all. She didn’t write anything down, wasn’t on her phone either. She just stared out in front of her, had lost a spark in her eyes that Ava had noticed before. If anything, Ava was concerned about Sara, because she was her student and she cared about her students, even if she wouldn’t openly admit it.

She decided that she was going to ask on Friday, since the last class she had to teach that day was Sara’s class.

It seemed to take forever until it was Friday though.

But when Friday finally did come along, she was nervous all day because she had no idea what was going on.

The moment she saw Sara walk in, she stood up from behind her desk and walked up to her. She touched her arm and Sara turned around with a shocked expression on her face.

“Hey, Sara, could you stay for a moment after class? I’d like to talk to you about something.” Sara only nodded. “Okay, great.”

Class seemed to go by slower than usual, but eventually the final bell rung, and people left the classroom. Sara stayed seated and didn’t even say anything to her friends. Something was most definitely going on.

When the last person left the room, Ava closed the door, then walked over the desk in front of Sara and sat down behind it, turning the chair so she could look at her.

“So.”

Sara just looked at her, trying to figure out where the conversation would be going.

“I’ve noticed that something has been going on this past week. And I don’t want to push you to tell me anything, but I’d just like to know what’s going on. I might be able to help you.”

Sara could feel the tears coming back again. “It’s just… Friday, I got a call from my dad to come to the hospital and when I got there…” her voice broke, and tears started rolling down her cheeks, “Laurel… she was in an accident and she died during surgery.”

Ava was speechless. She realized something bad happened, but she didn’t think it would be this horrible. Sara had lost her sister, Ava had lost her friend.

“Oh, my God, Sara, I- I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry.” She could feel tears welling up in her own eyes, too, and she tried her best to not let them fall, but before she knew it, they were rolling down her cheeks. “I have no idea how you must be feeling right now. I mean, Laurel was my friend, but she was your sister. I personally don’t have any siblings, but I don’t even want to start to imagine losing one.” Ava had stood up while she was talking and sat beside Sara, rubbing her hand up and down her back.

“It’s fine. Well, I mean, it’s not really, but, you know. I don’t even know why I told you. It’s not like you didn’t deserve to know, because she, was your friend, but I haven’t really told anyone but Amaya and Zari. I just… I don’t know anymore.”

“Hey, hey, it’s fine that you don’t know anymore. I don’t know how close you and your sister were, but it seems you two were pretty close and it’s totally acceptable to not be fine. Hell, it’d be weird if you were okay.” Sara let out a small laugh. “What?”

“It’s just weird to hear you curse. Never thought you were the type to do that.”

“I _am_ human, you know.”

It was quiet for a second, both of them appreciating the moment of silence between them.

“I just … I really don’t know what to do and I don’t know who to talk to because I could trust her with literally everything. She was the one that I first talked to when my first girlfriend broke up with me and she was the first one I told when a boy asked me out. And besides all that, the doctors discovered she was pregnant and she didn’t even get a chance to find out.”

“I truly am sorry, Sara. I don’t know what else to say but I’m sorry. I can’t believe she’s gone.”

“She didn’t deserve this, she deserved so much better. She did everything right, never hurt anyone, didn’t even hit a bug. She was the good one, I am the rebel, it should’ve been me.”

“Don’t say that. Everything happens for a reason, although I have no idea what the reason possibly could be for Laurel to die. You just have to believe that she’s in a better place now, all right?”

“Yeah, I guess I could try that. Thank you for the talk, miss Sharpe. I really needed that.”

“Any time. If you ever feel the need to talk again, you know where to find me.” Sara nodded and wiped her tears away. “You’ll be fine, all right?” She nodded again. “Okay then. Now, you’re welcome to stay for a while longer, I’m staying for another half an hour anyway.”

“Well, I do have some questions about things we’ve seen, especially from the past week because, well, you know.”

Ava nodded. “I could explain everything again if that’s what you want.”

“I’d like that.”

“Do you have your things with you?” Sara nodded. “Great. Just tell me what you don’t understand, and I’ll explain.”

“Everything, really, but mostly the assignment we got yesterday. I mean, it’s not like I’ve really looked at it either.”

Ava let out a small laugh. “Well, you have to write about your favorite person, whether that’s family or an idol, it doesn’t matter. It has to be like an interview, so you make questions and then answer them. It’s pretty simple.”

“You _do_ make it sound easy. When is it due?”

“Next week Friday. So you’ve got a week.”

“I can do that, I hope,” Sara chuckled.

“I believe you can. And I don’t mean to be harsh, but maybe now is a good time to start doing your best at school and pay attention. To honor your sister.”

“Perhaps it is.”

They both smiled. Maybe they would finally start getting along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think. Kudos are much appreciated because it makes me smile. Comments do too :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some Avalance and some important discussions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, not checked for mistakes.  
> The ending is crap but oh well. Had to end it somewhere.

The following Monday, Sara had no intention of going home after school. Her dad had started drinking somewhere during the weekend and hadn’t stopped since. When she had left her house that morning, all she had seen were empty bottles of all kinds of alcohol. She didn’t even ask him about it because he was too drunk to give an answer that made some kind of sense.

Somewhere throughout the day, she had asked Amaya if she could stay over at her place, who said it was fine and invited Zari as well, so they could have a sleepover. And because her friends loved her and cared about her, they would let her use their clothes, that way she wouldn’t have to go home to find her dad passed out on the couch. But at least that would be better than him being drunk and not asleep.

“So, uhm, I know this is a stupid question, but how have you been holding up?”

“Okay, I guess. As well as one would expect from someone who lost their sister not even two weeks ago.”

“I know that it means nothing, but again, I’m really sorry. Have you been able to talk to someone about it. Besides us or well, your dad?”

“I have actually.”

“Do you mind telling us who?”

“Well, it may shock you, but it’s Ms. Sharpe.”

“Wow. That _does_ kind of shock me. I thought you didn’t like her.”

“I didn’t. But with everything going on lately, she asked me what was wring and I just couldn’t keep it in anymore. I had to tell someone. And I mean, I know I have you guys, but it’s different, you know?”

“Yeah, I get it. I honestly wouldn’t know what I’d do if I lost my brother. I think you’re handling it quite well, but it’s normal that you have to talk to someone about it.”

“I guess. Can we please talk about something else now? I don’t want to break out crying in front of the entire school.”

“All right. Have you seen any of the boys lately? They’re acting strange.”

“Well, now you’re saying that, they are. I’ve seen them sneak around a few times the past week.”

“What would they be up too? It’s not like them to keep secrets. Amaya has Nate told you anything?”

“No. But if I’m being honest, things between us haven’t been great lately. Our relationship isn’t the same as it used to be anymore, and I don’t know if I feel the same about him anymore either.”

“I’m so sorry, Amaya. Are you thinking of breaking up with him?”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to break his heart and I also don’t want things to be weird between us, you know? We’re all friends and I don’t want to lose that for anything.”

“Hey, don’t think like that. Nothing could ever come between the friendship of our group, not even a breakup. Yes, it may be awkward in the beginning, but it’ll be fine in the end. You know that.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“Come on, let’s get to class.” Both Amaya and Zari looked at Sara in shock. “what?”

“Since when are you so eager to get to class?”

“I’m not. I simply don’t want to be late.”

“Yeah, sure. You probably just want to see Ms. Sharpe.”

“What? Why would I want to see her?”

“I don’t know, you tell me.”

“Well, I don’t,” Sara said, and her friends just looked at the floor in response. “Whatever. Come on.”

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

When class ended, Sara stayed, and her friends looked at her questioningly. She just shrugged it off and waited for everyone to leave the room. She really wanted to talk to her teacher. After Friday, she felt as if they had something in common and they could talk about it. But she also just needed to tell her about the recent developments at home.

“Hey, Sara, are you okay?”

She nodded. “I am now. I wouldn’t be if I were at home.”

“What happened?”

“I think the better question here is ‘what didn’t happen?’”

“Do you mind telling me about it?”

She shook her head no. “Well first of all, my dad threw every picture of her onto the ground and refuses to talk about her. Then he also started drinking this weekend. You don’t even want to know the number of empty bottles you can find on the coffee table alone. He hasn’t cooked at all, which is unusual for him because he always cooked us meals. He didn’t even go into work, and he loves his work. Because of all of that, I’m always in my room, and if I do come downstairs, it’s because I’m either coming home or leaving the house. It’s really bad and I have no idea what to do.” Sara buried her head in her hands and Ava sat down next to her.

“Do you have anyone, besides me, to talk about it?” Sara shook her head. “Do you think you’ll need someone to talk about it?” She nodded. “Well, maybe we could search for someone together. I have this friend who can help. Her name is Karen Kim. She’s really good. Would you mind going to her?”

Sara thought about it for a moment. She knew she’d have to talk to someone about it because there was no way she would be able to let it go without talking about what happened. But she didn’t want to just tell anyone. She wasn’t going to go to a total stranger because she didn’t feel comfortable talking to someone he didn’t know.

“I would. I’m sure your friend is great and would be able to help me, but I don’t like talking to a total stranger. What I need is talking to someone who knows me but won’t judge me for anything. I’m not going to talk to my friends about it because I don’t want to be a burden to them and there’s no way in hell I’m talking to my dad about it. Not as long as he’s drinking.”

“Well, if you want, you could talk to me about it. I’m not going to judge you for whatever you say and maybe it will be a good thing for the both of us.”

“Yeah, I guess it would be. Then maybe I can finally give you that credit my friends keep telling me to give you.” Sara smirked and earned a small laugh from Ava in return. “No, in all seriousness, I think it might actually be a good thing. You knew Laurel and I’ve already told you what happened, so I wouldn’t have to tell all of that again.”

“True. Well, great. I know we haven’t really started off on the right foot, but with this, we can start over. During class, I’m still going to be your teacher and you’ll have to listen to what I say, but outside of class, I’d like it if you could think of me as your friend and I know what I’m going to do may be weird and inappropriate, since I’m your teacher and all, but if you give me your phone, I’ll put in my number so you can text or call me whenever necessary.”

Sara took out her phone and handed it to Ava, who quickly put in her number, but didn’t put in her name.

“It’s up to you what you put in as my name. As long as you know that it’s me.”

“I’ll put you in as ‘annoying teacher’ then.” Ava glared at Sara. “Oh, come on, you know I’m kidding.”

“Yeah, sure. Don’t you have to get to your next class or something?”

“I suppose I do, but I’ve already missed half of it, so I might as well wait till it’s over.”

Ava sighed. She knew there was no point in fighting Sara over this because she was right. “So, what do you suggest we do in the meantime?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we could get to know each other a little better.” Ava looked at her questioningly. “What? I want to know who I’m going to spend more time with.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Hm, let me think.” She looked at the floor for a second. “How old are you?”

“I’m 23.”

“Wow.”

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just that I would’ve guessed 25 or something.”

“Thanks, jerk.”

“No, I mean, it’s not a bad thing that you’re younger than I thought. In fact, it’s a good thing.”

“Yeah sure. My turn. What do you want to become?”

“Good one. Well, I don’t really know yet, but I do know that, if it was possible, I’d love to travel through time, but it’s not so that’s very unfortunate.”

“Well, maybe it will be possible somewhere in the future.”

“Yeah, maybe. My turn again. What made you decide to become a teacher?”

“Easy. I like to be in control of everything and all throughout my childhood, I always felt like teacher had control over us. So ever since fourth grade, I’ve wanted to become a teacher. But now, with you, I know we don’t have any control at all,” Ava joked.

“Hey! I can be a good student if I want to be. I simply choose not to be.”

“Yeah sure,” Ava chuckled. “Anyway, dogs or cats?”

“Really? That’s really no question. Dogs. Always dogs.”

“Dogs are fine, I guess. I prefer cats.”

“Of course you do. Well, last Friday when I first talked to you, I was telling about my first girlfriend and then about a boy who asked me out, so I just need to know, you don’t mind that I’m bisexual and by that part of the LGBTQ community, right?”

“Well, seeing as I’m part of it myself, I don’t.”

“Oh, I didn’t know.”

Ava laughed. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not like I just run around telling everyone I’m gay or anything, but I most definitely don’t deny it. I don’t think I’d ever in my life be able to date a man. It just seems kind of gross.”

“Oh, believe me, they can be a lot of fun.”

“Okaaaaaayyy, that’s something I did not need to know.”

Sara just smirked in response. “Well, looks like the bell is going to ring soon, Ms. Sharpe, so I better get going.”

“Yeah, probably. I’ll see you in class tomorrow.”

“Maybe you won’t,” Sara smirked again.

“You better be in class, miss Lance, or you’re going to get some trouble.”

Sara laughed it off. “Bye, Ms. Sharpe, see you tomorrow.”

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

 “She did what?” Sara was currently sitting on the floor with Zari and Amaya next to her.

“She gave me her number and said I could talk to her whenever necessary.” She didn’t think she’d find it so easy to tell her friends, but it had been, and she was happy for that because her friends were like her family and they meant everything to her.

“Wow. I actually never expected her to do that. Because, for one, she’s a teacher, and for two, and no offense, but it’s not like you’re a good student,” Amaya commented.

“I know, but she did know Laurel as well so it’s going to be easier talking to her. I’ve already told her what happened as well and it’s just really easy to talk to her if you allow it. She’s actually a great listener and gives good advice as well.”

“I really am shocked. As what did you put her in?”

“Nothing? I literally have no idea what name to put in. I can’t just do ‘Ms. Sharpe’ because if anyone ever sees it, they’re going to think weird things.”

“Not like anyone, but us, would ever even dare to think of touching your phone.”

“Hm, fair enough. Maybe I should just put her in as ‘Ava’?”

“Maybe that’d be the easiest. But what if someone sees and asks who Ava is?”

“What do you suggest? A false name?”

“Yeah, or a nickname or something,” Zari suggested. “Oh, I have a good one. Sunshine. Because you really did think she was a sunshine in the beginning of the year.”

“Ha ha ha, very funny. I’ll put in a sun emoji, to keep you happy and because I know I’ll remember that. And if I don’t, you’ll be there to remind me.”

“Exactly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would love it if you left a comment to let me know what you think.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so, this is like REALLY short. Only like 1200 words, and i usually write 2000. But this is just a filler chapter and it's really not important. Also, I'm not good at writing about a father-daughter relationship because I stopped going to my dad like 4 years ago and I honestly hate him.

After two weeks, you could clearly see Sara had started paying attention during class. Her grades had gone up, she hadn’t had to go to detention and her teachers didn’t complain about her anymore. She had started actually doing her homework and found it wasn’t as bad as what she had expected it to be. She felt happier because of all of that, but the emptiness and sadness were still present within her soul. It was the worst when she came home, where she would usually be met with a dad passed out on the couch and too many bottles of alcohol to start counting. She rarely ever spoke to him anymore because she wasn’t particularly interested in talking to someone who wouldn’t remember a single thing in the morning. She tried to be away from home as much as possible, doing whatever until she had no other choice but to go home. She hadn’t called or texted Ava, not wanting to be a burden, but she did talk to her once after school and ran into her in the grocery store as well.

But Sara had mostly kept her feelings to herself, which she knew wasn’t a good idea, but she did it anyway. She had never been good at expressing how she felt, had never needed to express how she felt, she wouldn’t even know how to do so.

As for her friends, they were mostly back to normal. The boys had stopped acting weird and Amaya finally decided to break up with Nate. It was weird between them for a few days, and it still kind of was, but it would go back to normal eventually.

Obviously, they all knew what happened, but Amaya and Zari knew everything about the situation and about Ava, while the boys only knew what happened, without any details. It’s not like Sara had seen them a lot the past weeks either because they were always wherever Sara and the girls were not. They had briefly told why they hadn’t spent much time with them the past three weeks, but if Sara was being honest, she didn’t understand any of it.

“How are you holding up?” Ray asked, catching up to Sara. He most definitely was the one who cared most about his friends’ wellbeing. He also was the least reckless one of the group.

“I’m okay, I guess. I’ve been able to talk to someone about it who also knew Laurel, so it does make it at least a little easier. It males me feel less alone as well, you know?”

“Well, I don’t, since I’ve never experienced what you are going through right now, but if it’s even only a fraction of what I think it is like, then it must be really hard for you.

“Thanks, Ray. I appreciate your concern.”

“Always, Sara. I know you’ll get through this and be fine.”

Amaya, Zari, Wally, Nate, Mick, Jax and Nora walked up to them soon enough. Ray went to his girlfriend and kissed her, and Zari made a gagging sound. “Get a room already,” she said.

The couple just smiled at each other and pulled away. “Just you wait until you have someone.”

“Yeah, right.”

They all walked to their next class, French with Mr. Green, but everyone just called him by his first name because he thought that students should get to call all their teacher by their first name. But so far, he was the only one who allowed it.

French was boring, as usual. They just didn’t like French at all because they thought it didn’t sound good and it was a hard language to learn. Especially the verbs. They sucked, there being too many exceptions to the rules.

“Okay, but guys, let’s be honest here, why would anyone want to learn French?”

“Well, either to learn an extra language or because they want to talk to people who speak French, because we all know the French are incapable of speaking English.”

“True. But it still sucks.”

All of them nodded in agreement.

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

When school was over for that day, the group decided to go get something to eat. They always went to the same place and they always sat in the same booth.

“So, Sara, could you, if you don’t mind doing so, tell us a bit about the past few weeks?” Nate asked once they got their food.

Sara was unsure of what to do. There were only three people who knew exactly what happened in those weeks, but the boys were her friends too and they deserved to know. So she decided too tell them.

And she told them everything. Every detail of what happened that night at the hospital, about her dad’s drinking, about talking with Ms. Sharpe. She felt relieved when she was finished, happy to get it off her chest.

“I had no idea, Sara. I’m so sorry. Now I feel bad that we haven’t been around much during those weeks,” Nate said.

Sara shook her head. “Don’t be, it’s fine. I’ve had some good talks with Ms. Sharpe and it honestly helped me a lot.”

“I think it’s great that you’re talking to her about it, that you’re not keeping it all inside like you usually do,” Ray told her.

Sara just smiled. The loss of her sister was still a hard thing for her to process, and it probably always would be hard for her, but she knew her friend would always be there for her, no matter what. Just like she knew her sister was in a better place and was watching over her.

Every day, it got a little easier to talk about her. She laughed when she thought about all the good memories they had made together. Like that one time where Sara and Laurel went to the beach with their dad’s car. They had went into the water and the rolled in the sand, having it stick to their bodies. Quentin had been so mad at them when he saw hos car covered in sand, but any time they had brought it back up, he had laughed at it.

Nights were the worst though. She’d have nightmares about the accident and wake up crying and screaming. If that would’ve happened in the past, her dad would’ve been at her bedside in a split second. But now he wasn’t, because he’d be too drunk. If she was being honest, she hated it. She loved her dad, yes, but now he felt more like a stranger than a father and it killed her.

Everything had changed so fast and Sara wasn’t good with change. But she adjusted the best she could, not really having a different choice, and only talked to her dad when absolutely necessary and being in her room otherwise. She tried to stay away from home as much as she possibly could though, doing her homework at either Zari’s or Amaya’s house. Sometimes when she was at home, she’d be tempted to call Ava to talk about everything, but in the end, she never did, always deciding the woman had a life of her own too. But as the day went by, she was more and more tempted to call her, but was always too scared.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something bad is always followed by something good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think you're all really gonna like this chapter.

Her dad had slowly been getting better. He wasn’t drunk all the time and he even started cooking again. Well, most days anyway. Some days were still bad, but not nearly as bad as it had been in the beginning.

Until a cold Friday night at the end of November. Quentin was drunk beyond anything Sara had ever seen. She didn’t even think a person could drink that much. At first, she had stayed at home and tried cleaning up the place a bit, but her dad had gotten mad and thrown an empty bottle in her direction, but missed her, having the bottle fly straight into the last remaining picture Laurel was in. She had forced herself to not start crying in front of her father and instead ran upstairs. She picked up the first backpack she could find and took some random clothes out of her closet and put them in it. She threw in whatever else she thought she’d need and then closed it, swinging the backpack over her shoulder and grabbing her phone before going back downstairs and walking out the door.

Truth is, she had no idea where to go. She could probably go to Zari’s or Amaya’s place, but then she realized it was past midnight and decided not to.

She wandered through the streets of Star City for quite a whom before she got cold. Shivers were running down her spine and she knew she’d have to go somewhere for the night, but she honestly had no idea where to go. So she did the last thing she ever thought she would do. She took her phone and dialed the number that has been in there for the past three months. As she waited for the person to pick up, she debated with herself whether or not this was a good idea, but before she could decide, her thinking was interrupted by a voice the other side of the line.

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

Ava had come home and immediately changed into sweatpants and hoodie that was too big for her. She had watched a movie, followed by another one and so on. The only moment she had left her couch was to get something from the fridge to eat as dinner. A movie or two later, she was about halfway through a bag of chips when her phone went off. She didn’t recognize the number but picked up anyway after pausing her movie.

“Hello?”

It was silent on the other side of the line for a few seconds, but soon enough she heard a voice she recognized immediately.

“Ava? I- I’m sorry for calling you. I don’t know why I did.” She heard the uncertainty in her voice. What could possibly have happened? She looked fine when she had seen her earlier that morning.

“Oh my God, Sara, what happened? Are you okay?”

“I’m not, actually. I ran away from home. I couldn’t stay there. I just couldn’t.”

“Where are you right now?”

“Honestly? I have no idea. I just walked around a bit and now I’m lost, I guess.”

“Are there any stores around?”

“Uhm, I don’t know. There’s this pub. I think it’s Irish, but I have no idea.”

“Oh, I think I know where you are. You just stay there, alright? I’m going to come and pick you up.”

“No, I’ll be fine. You don’t have to.”

“Sara, it’s freezing outside. I’m picking you up. There’s no way I’m arguing about this.”

“Okay, fine, you can come pick me up.”

“I was going to anyway, whether you wanted me to or not.” Ava could hear Sara laugh a little at that. “Alright, see you in a bit.”

“Yean, see ya.”

Ava left the movie as it was and pulled on some shoes, grabbed her keys and left her apartment, getting to her car as quickly. She drove as fast as she possibly could without exceeding the speed limit, not planning on getting a speeding ticket. Luckily, it was only a ten-minute drive, so she got there quickly. She slowed down once she saw Sara sitting on a bench and came to a stop in front of her. Sara looked up and Ava could see the stained tears on her face.

She left the engine on and stepped out of the car. The moment she reached her, she could see that Sara was still crying. She sat down and pulled her into her. Sara started crying more and Ava just rubbed her back. She knew it was probably inappropriate to do as a teacher, but she cared about her students’ wellbeing and Sara just seemed to really need someone to hold her.

After a few minutes, Sara pulled away and wiped her tears.

“Sorry about that,” she said, her voice still shaky.

“Hey, it’s fine. You clearly needed that,” Ava reassured her. Sara nodded and then shivered. “Are you cold?”

“A bit.”

“Okay, let’s get you in the car then. It’s warmer in there than it is out here.”

They stood up and Ava opened the door to the passenger seat. Sara hesitated for a second, unsure whether or not she should step in but eventually she did after realizing that her only other option was staying outside in the cold. Ava closed the door for her as well and then ran around the car to get in herself.

“Better?”

“Yeah, a bit.”

Ava reached behind her and took a hoodie from the backseat.

“Here, put this on. It will probably be too big for you, but it will help.”

“Do you always have random clothes on your backseat?”

“No. I only have that one hoodie there for when it’s cold, but I forgot to put on something warm. Don’t judge me.”

“I’m not judging you. It’s just funny.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever.”

The entire drive back to Ava’s place was in a comfortable silence. Once they arrived at her place, they stepped out of the car and Ava led Sara up to her apartment.

“Welcome to my place.”

Sara looked around for a few seconds without saying anything, but eventually she spoke up.

“It looks lovely.”

“Thank you. It isn’t that big, but it’s big enough for me.”

“It’s cozy.”

“Do you want something to drink?”

“Just a bit of water, please?”

“Coming right up. Feel free to go sit on the couch or whatever. You could also lie on the floor if you want to. It’s quite comfortable actually.”

“So if I get this right, you’re saying that you sometimes lie on the floor?”

“Perhaps. You should try it sometime.”

“I think I’ll pass, but thanks for the idea anyway.” Sara laughed and made her way over to the couch while Ava went to the kitchen, took two glasses, and poured some water in both of them before walking back to the couch and handing Sara one of the glasses. “Thanks.” Sara smiled.

Ava sat down next to her. “So, do you mind telling me what happened?”

Sara hesitated for a second. She knew Ava told her she could always talk to her, but it still was a little scary.

“Where do I even start?”

“How about the beginning?”

“Ha ha, very funny.”

“I know, right. Just take your time, all right? I’ve got time.”

Sara sighed. “Remember how I told you about my dad?” Ava nodded. “Well, for the past two months, he had actually gotten better. He started cooking again, asked me about school, all the stuff a normal father does. Sure, he still had his bad days where he’d drink, but it wasn’t as bad as it used to be. But tonight, I- I don’t know what happened, but he never drank this much before. I tried cleaning up the place a bit, but then he threw a bottle at me, but he was too drunk, so he missed and instead it flew int the last remaining picture Laurel was in. I just couldn’t stay there, so I left and then, well, you know what happened.” She tried her best to not burst out crying, but a few tears managed to escape anyway. “I don’t know what to do anymore.” And then she was full on crying. She hid her face in her hands, but it wasn’t long until Ava wrapped her arms around her.

“Shh, shh, it’s okay. Just let it all go.”

They just sat there until Sara stopped crying. When she pulled away, Ava wiped away her last remaining tears.

“Do you want to talk about it some more?”

“Not now? I honestly just want to forget about tonight.”

“That’s fine. I get it, to be honest. I would probably react the same way if my dad did that. But, if you don’t mind me asking, you always talk about your dad, but never about your mom. How come?”

“She left a few years back. It’s not the first time my dad has been drinking this much and my mom just couldn’t handle it anymore. She moved to Central City and I haven’t seen her since. She calls sometimes though, but as the months go by, she calls less and less and sometimes I wonder if she even knows what has happened.”

“I’m really sorry. My parents have always been there for me, so I can’t imagine what it must be like for you.”

“It’s fine, really. I’ve grown used to it. My dad just never drank _this_ much, and it does hurt a bit to know that he rather drinks than talk about how he feels. I’m not saying I’m good at expressing how I feel, but at least I don’t go around drinking until I’m so drunk I don’t remember a single thing in the morning.”

“You do talk about your feelings. You’ve talked to me a few times and that’s a really good thing. It’s not like I ever forced you to talk, but you did it because you wanted to.”

“Yeah, I guess. Just thank you for being there for me.”

“I’ve already told you that you could talk to me anytime. Now I think you know I _actually_ mean anytime, seeing as it’s almost 1 am.”

They both laughed.

“Yeah, about that, I should probably get going.”

“Are you insane? There is no way in hell I’m letting you go back into the cold. I’m letting you stay here.”

“You’re my teacher, you can’t do that.”

“Sara, it’s not like we’re going to be sleeping _together_. You can sleep in my bed and I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“I’m going to agree to staying here on the condition that I’m the one who’s sleeping on the couch. You’re not giving up your bed for me.” Ava was about to open her mouth to say something before Sara stopped her. “It’s either that or I’m leaving.”

“Okay, fine. Do you have anything with you to sleep in?” Sara shook her head. “Let me get you something.” Ava stood up from her couch and walked to her bedroom, getting sweatpants and a shirt for Sara before returning to the living area and handing them to her. “Do you need anything else?”

“Not as far as I know. I’ll let you know if I do.”

“Well, if you want anything else to drink, there’s stuff in the fridge. Feel free to steal my food as well. There’s plenty. I’m going to go to sleep now, but if you want to watch television or anything, the remote is on the coffee table.”

“All right, I think I’ll be fine. I have one question though.”

“Shoot.”

“Where can I charge my phone? The battery is almost dead.” Ava laughed before pointing to some outlets. “Thanks,” Sara said, walking over to the spot Ava pointed to and plugging in her phone, getting back to the couch as fast as she could. “And thanks for letting me stay here. It really means a lot to me.”

“I told you, anytime. You can stay here as long as you want. Just don’t tell anyone or I’m probably getting fired, and I love my job a little too much for that.”

Sara laughed as Ava turned to leave the room.

“Ava?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you stay here and watch television with me for a while? I just really don’t want to be alone right now.”

“Of course.” She walked to the couch again and sat down next to Sara after picking up the remote. “Anything in particular you’d like to watch?”

“Not really. Just something that isn’t sad.” She laid her head on Ava’s shoulder and even though she probably shouldn’t, she couldn’t help but want to be close to the woman. Even if she knew she wasn’t allowed to be, she felt attracted to Ava in a way she didn’t quite understand yet. It was a strange feeling, but she felt safe when she talked to her, felt as if she could tell her everything.

Eventually, Sara fell asleep on the couch and Ava smiled. She stood up, careful as not to wake her, and took a blanket to cover her up with. She turned off the television and smiled at Sara one more time before turning off the lights and walking into her bedroom.  She quickly changed into something to sleep in and lied down on her bed, pulling the covers over her. It wasn’t long before she fell asleep, but she doesn’t think she ever fell asleep being this happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanna thank each and every single one of you for reading this story. Every kudos it gets, makes me smile. I really love writing this story and I'm spending all my free time writing this. I love all of your feedback and it makes me really happy. So thanks again for reading :) There are plenty more chapters to come.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ava forgets Sara slept over at her apartment. She goes out to the mall with Felicity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I almost broke my ankle today, so I didn't have to go walk my dog, which is the only reason I got to finish writing this chapter, so you should be happy I'm hurt lol :)  
> But I'm fine now, so don't worry and just enjoy the chapter.

When Ava had woken up the following morning, she got out of bed and walked into the kitchen, first making her usual coffee and then making breakfast. During the week, it usually was just a bowl of cereal, but during the week she always made herself something special. Scrambled eggs with bacon on Saturday and on Sunday, she usually got croissants from the bakery that wasn’t far from her apartment.

She had totally forgotten Sara was there. It was only when she turned around with her plate in her hand that she saw her and remembered she wasn’t alone. Sara was staring at her and when she looked down, she realized she was only wearing a shirt that barely covered her butt. She blushed, put her plate down and quickly ran to her bedroom to get some sweatpants. When she returned to the kitchen, she found Sara standing at the counter top and eating the breakfast Ava had been eating not even half a minute ago.

“You know that’s my food, right?”

Sara looked down at the plate for a few seconds before looking at Ava again. “I don’t see your name anywhere on it.”

“You really do think you’re funny, don’t you?” Ava said while retrieving another plate from the cupboard and filling it with some more scrambled eggs and bacon. Luckily, she had made enough.

“I don’t _think_ I’m funny. I _know_ I’m funny.”

Ava rolled her eyes and started eating as well.

“Did you sleep well?”

“Woke up around 3 and changed into the clothes you gave me, then went back to sleep, woke up a few more times, but I didn’t have any nightmares, so yeah, I did.”

“Do you have a lot of nightmares?”

“Ever since Laurel died, I have them every night. I’ve grown used to waking up screaming and sweating, but I’m relieved I didn’t have any last night. First time in over two months.”

“That’s a good thing. Do you want to talk about them?”

Sara shook her head. “No, I’m good. “

“Okay then.”

They ate their breakfast in a comfortable silence. Sara finished first and put her plate in the sink and then went on her phone until Ava finished her breakfast.

“So, uhm, not to be rude or anything, but you’re going to have to go soon because I’m going out with Felicity later today.”

“Who’s Felicity?”

“Felicity Smoak.”

“Oh, right. Oliver’s wife.”

“How are you on a first name base with Oliver?”

“My dad’s a cop and Oliver used to get in a lot of trouble when he was younger. Sometimes he’d come to our house to thank my dad for letting him go. My dad could see that Oliver didn’t do any harm, and he’s helped him to become a better man. He became a teacher and then met Felicity. And once in a while, he still comes around to visit.”

“Oh. That’s cool.”

“Well, since I’m his student now, he doesn’t come as much as he used to because it’s kind of weird to be in the same room as a teacher outside of class.”

“Then what do you think you’re doing right now?”

“You know what I mean. This is way different than with Oliver. Besides, you gave me no other choice but to be here,” Sara joked.

“Feel free to go, but I doubt you want to go home.”

“Yeah, about that, I know you’ve got to go in a little bit, but would you mind if I stay here again tonight? I’m not ready to go home yet.”

Ava thought about it for a second. She could let Sara stay here for the night again. She was just helping one of her students out after all.

“Yeah, I mean, I guess you could. But you’d have to go until tonight though. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean it as an offense, but I still don’t know you that well and I’d rather not have you be here all by yourself.”

“I get it. If I were in your place, I would probably do the same. I can go to Zari or Amaya or so. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind.”

“All right. Well, you can stay here for a little longer while I get ready. And you can leave your stuff here as well.”

“Great, thanks. I’m going to go get changed real fast and then I’ll leave you to it.”

Ava pointed her to the bathroom and Sara quickly grabbed some fresh clothes and underwear from her backpack and then left to get changed. When she returned, she found Ava sitting on the couch, looking at something on her phone.

“I’m going to get going now. I’ll call or text you when I’m coming back here. Probably somewhere around 8.”

“Yeah, that’s fine. I’m up until at least 11, so don’t worry if it’s later than that. I won’t go to sleep until you’re here anyway.”

“Okay. See you later, bye.”

“Bye.”

And then Sara was gone. The moment the door closed, Ava let out a breath she didn’t even know she was holding. She doesn’t know why, but for some reason she always felt nervous around Sara. It was like when Sara was around, Ava wanted to be the best version of herself and didn’t want to do anything wrong, almost as if she wanted to impress her. She shook that thought from her mind, knowing there was no way in hell she should be thinking like that. Sara was her student for God’s sake.

She then realized she was meeting up with Felicity to go to the mall. Looking at the watch on her wrist, she decided she could sit on the couch for at least another half hour before she’d even have to think about starting to get ready.

“Felicity, hey.”

“Hi. How are you doing?”

“I’m fine, I guess.”

“What do you mean ‘I guess’?”

“Just something that happened during the night and continued on till the morning.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“No, I’ll be fine. Just a little confused still. How are _you_ doing?”

“I’m really good actually.”

“How about Oliver?”

“He’s really good too.”

They walked through the mall and chatted for a while longer before they went to Starbucks to get something to drink.

“I’ve got to ask you something.”

“Shoot.”

“Well, you look really happy and more energetic than you usually already are. You’re drinking tea instead of coffee, which is weird because you love coffee. You’re also glowing, so I _have_ to ask, are you pregnant?”

The cup in her hand suddenly became very interesting when Ava asked that question and a smile spread across her face before she even knew it.

Ava’s eyes widened in shock and then a wide smile overtook her face as well. “Oh my God, congratulations. How long have you known? Does Oliver know?”

Felicity nodded. “He knows. We found out together about two weeks ago. We honestly couldn’t be happier.”

“I’m so happy for you two. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Well, we actually wanted to keep it quiet for a little while longer, but you’re smarter than I thought,” Felicity teased. “No, you know I’m messing with you. I was going to tell you today, but you figured it out before I got the chance.”

“Congratulations again. I’m so excited for you two.”

“We are too, even if it wasn’t really planned, it most certainly isn’t unwelcome. We always wanted kids, so we’re really happy.”

“I want to be a mom one day too.”

“Well, you’ve got time, right? You’re only like what? 24?”

“23, but yeah, I do. And I have to find the right woman first as well.”

“You’ll find her. Maybe not today, but maybe tomorrow or somewhere next week or next month. It could also be next year, but I promise you, you’ll find her eventually.”

“Yeah, I know. And I know I’m still young, but sometimes I’m so scared to find that person and then realize that we’re not allowed to be together.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hm? Oh, nothing. I just meant that, what if I find that person but she doesn’t want me?”

“Girl, look at you. If I were into women, I’d most certainly want to be with you.”

Ava laughed at that. “Perhaps you’re right. I’ll just have to wait and see, don’t I?”

“Yup. But believe me when I say that when you meet that person, you’ll know. It might be weird at first, and you might even not get along at first, but deep down, you’ll know that she’s the one.”

“Is that how it was for you and Oliver?”

“Oh, hell no. Oliver and I met in the weirdest way possible and I’m not even going to start telling you the story because it’s way too long and complicated.”

“Well, with Oliver, it kind of has to be.”

“Fair enough.”

They laughed before they continued walking through the mall and went into a few more stores after finishing their drinks. Felicity bought two new t-shirts and a dress, while Ava got herself some new sweatpants and a hoodie. “You can never have enough of them,” is what she had said when Felicity had shot her a questioning look, at which Felicity just laughed and said it was true.

Around 6 pm, the two women went to get some lunch and after they finished it, they said goodbye to each other and went their own ways.

When Ava arrived home, she checked her phone for the first time since she left. She had 2 messages and a missed call. The messaged were from Sara telling that it would probably around 10 when she’d come back to Ava’s apartment and the missed call was from her ex in Vegas. She rolled her eyes when she had seen it and just deleted it. The message she sent back to Sara was just a quick ‘Okay, thanks for letting me know’ and then she threw her phone aside. She changed into her usual at-home clothing.

She lay on the couch after grabbing a book from her bookshelf and started reading. About 3 hours and a hundred pages later, there was a knock on her door. Ava sighed and put her book aside, walking to the door and then opening it.

“Hi,” she was greeted by Sara.

“Hey, come on in.”

Ava noticed the bag Sara was holding as she walked in.

“Okay, so, I wanted to thank you for letting me stay here, but I honestly had no idea how I could, so I went to the grocery store and looked around for a while and then I decided to get you your favorite chocolate.”

“Ho-“

“Remember that one time you ran your cart into me at the grocery store? You were looking for your favorite chocolate, and in some miraculous way, I remember what it was.”

“Well, thank you. You didn’t have to bring me anything, though. A simple ‘thank you’ would’ve sufficed.”

“Oh, then I’ll take the chocolate and just say ‘thank you’ instead.”

“The chocolate stays here,” Ava says, shooting a death glare at Sara.

“Okay, okay, you can have it. But really, though. Thank you for letting me stay here. It means a lot to me.”

“Well, I do prefer my students being safe, which means I don’t want them sleeping on the street after running away from home, which I totally understand why you did.”

Sara just smiled in return and made her way over to the couch, plopping down after taking the remote from the coffee table.

“Hey, you want to watch something with me?”

“Yeah, sure. Have you heard from this show called ‘Once Upon a Time’?”

“I’ve heard about it, but never watched it.”

“Well, it’s my favorite show. Maybe we could watch it?”

“Fine by me.” Sara handed the remote to Ava, who had come to sit next to her. She didn’t have to look far before she found the show on Netflix. She clicked on the first episode of season one and watched Sara as the episode began.

Sara’s eyes were focused on the screen, never noticing Ava staring at her. She thought the show was interesting and after the first episode, they watched the second episode, followed by the third, fourth and fifth. By the time they reached the sixth episode, it had been well past midnight, but they just continued watching, Ava still more focused on Sara than the show. She had seen all the episodes a thousand times anyway.

It was after episode seven that Sara had realized how late it was.

“Shit, it’s 3 am. We should probably get some sleep.”

“Hm, what? Yeah, of course.” Ava said as she got snapped out of her trance.

Sara laughed. “What were you doing, Ms. Sharpe?”

Ava started blushing without even realizing it. “I was watching the show.” _Lie._

“Whatever you say. I’m going to go to the bathroom and then I’m going to sleep because I’d very much like to not look like a zombie tomorrow, well, today actually.”

Ava got up from the couch and scratched behind her ear, something she’d always do whenever she was nervous.

“Okay, well, if you, uhm, need anything or whatever.”

“Then I’ll know where to find you.” Sara smiled at her.

“Right,” Ava whispered and then walked into her bedroom.


	10. Chapter 10

Sleep came slow that night. Ava didn’t know why, though, because she had been awake for nearly twenty hours. She sighed as she rolled over and looked at the clock. _5.30 am._ Another sigh and she rolled over onto her other side again. She thought about her life. She was 23 and has achieved nothing except her career, which she was obviously proud of. But she was missing something in her life, or rather, someone. Even though she was still young, she longed to settle down with someone, to hold at night, someone to love more than life itself and be able to spend the rest of her life with. That’s all she had ever wanted since she was little.

Her parents had gotten divorced when she was just five after her dad cheated on her mom. For the following seven years, she had gone to her dad for a weekend every two weeks, but at some point in sixth grade, she had enough and they had fought when her dad had brought her back to her mom on Sunday evening. The moment he had said, well, yelled really “If you’re going to act like this, there’s no need for you to come anymore” and she had yelled “Okay then” right back at him, she had thrown the door shut into his face.

Truth be told, she had never liked going to her dad. In the beginning she had to go, she always cried right before he came to pick her up.

So because her parents had divorced, and everything that came with it, she had always wanted to find someone who she would spend the rest of her life with, so the same thing wouldn’t happen to her like it did to her parents. But where do you find such a person?

Ava had absolutely no idea. The only person she could think of, there was no way in hell she felt the same way. And even if she did, they could never be together.

Eventually, she fell asleep around 6 am, but her alarm woke her up two hours later. She groaned as she turned it off and sat up straight, rubbing her eyes before getting up. She didn’t bother actually lifting her feet and strolled into the kitchen. She was surprised to find Sara already there and preparing breakfast.

“Wow.” Sara turned around at the sound of Ava’s voice.

“Good morning,” she said with a broad smile across her face. “I hope you’re hungry. I went to the bakery, so I have all kinds of stuff from there. I also have freshly squeezed orange juice.”

“Why did you do this?”

“Well, I know you said a simple thank you would suffice for what you’ve done for me, and I know I already gave you that chocolate, but I still didn’t think it was enough so I decided to make you breakfast.”

“Oh, wow. Thank you. You really shouldn’t have done this, but I might as well enjoy it. It’s not every day I get a breakfast like this.”

Sara blushed and looked down at her hands where she was still cutting fruit. “You’re welcome. I also have fruit if you’re interested.”

“I hate fruit, but thanks for the offer.”

“Oh, well, then I guess I have more fruit for me.”

Ava sat down at the table where Sara had set up everything. She was really surprised by this and never would have even imagined Sara would ever do something like this. But she would most certainly enjoy it.

When Sara joined her at the table, she grabbed a croissant and put it on her plate. She cut it open and then put some butter on it before she started eating it. As she looked over to Sara, Ava saw she had a crumb on the side of her mouth.

“Uhm, Sara, you have something on your lip.”

“Where?” She wiped her mouth but missed the crumb.

“Here, let me,” Ava said and then wiped away the crumb.

Both blushed and Sara let out a quiet “Thank you”.

They continued eating in silence and when they finished, they started cleaning the table, still not saying a word.

“Sooooo, what are you going to do today?” Ava broke the silence once they were sitting on the couch.

Sara turned to Ava. “Hmmm, well, I don’t really know yet. All I know is that I’m going to have to home at one point today if I want to be able to go to school tomorrow anyway.”

“Yeah, probably,” Ava replied quietly, not wanting to acknowledge the fact Sara would have to go today, because she liked Sara’s presence, it made her feel less alone.

“What about you?”

“Just going to prepare my classes for tomorrow. Probably going to watch some television as well, because I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m pretty addicted to that thing.”

“Yeah, I have. But I don’t blame or judge you. I’m pretty addicted myself.” They laughed and then they sat in a comfortable silence again.

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

It was somewhere in the late afternoon when Sara decided it was probably time to go. Ava had prepared all of her classes and they had watched some more “Once Upon a Time” together. Sara had now seen more than half of the first season and she was in absolute love with the show. She loved the way the characters were written and thought the storyline was amazing.

“I’m probably going to have to go.”

“What if I don’t want you to go?” Ava muttered, not meant for Sara to hear, but she did anyway.

“What?” Sara must’ve not understood correctly.

Ava took a deep breath. “I said, what if I don’t want you to go?”

Sara was shocked to say the least. Was she dreaming? “So, what you’re saying is that you want me to stay here?” she asked quietly. Ava nodded slowly and looked down at her hands. “Why?” Sara asked as she moved a little closer.

Ava let her head fall back and she sighed. “Because I enjoy your company? Ugh, I don’t know, it’s complicated.”

A little smile crossed Sara’s face. “Can I try something?” Ava looked at Sara and nodded.

Sara’s face suddenly got very serious as she leaned in. As their faces got closer and closer together, Sara kept looking at Ava’s face, searching for signs she didn’t want this, but couldn’t find any, which made her lean in even more. Eventually, their lips met and neither Sara or Ava had any idea as to what was happening. They only knew that they were kissing and that it felt really good.

The kiss got deeper, and Sara reached her hand up to Ava’s cheek and Ava tangled her hand in Sara’s hair and pulled her in even closer. They kept kissing and Sara moved to sit in Ava’s lap, who gladly helped her move over.

They both knew they shouldn’t be doing what they were and knew they should pull away, but the kiss felt too right to do so.

Ava felt as if she was in heaven. She was kissing the girl she could never be with, but in that moment, she couldn’t care less about that.

As for Sara, she was kissing the woman that she started having feelings towards that were anything but the hatred she had felt for her when they first met.

The kiss got more heated and then Sara swiped her tongue across Ava’s lips, who happily granted access and before Ava knew it, Sara’s tongue roamed her mouth and she couldn’t help but let out a quiet moan.

Sara smiled into the kiss and continued roaming her mouth with her tongue, earning another moan. Her hand fell from Ava’s cheek to her hips and she held onto the hem of Ava’s shirt, but it wasn’t long until her hands found their way under her shirt. Her fingers discovered the skin that was found, and they slowly made their way up Ava’s body.

Ava found that she needed to take a little more charge because right now, Sara was in charge and she didn’t like it. So she pulled back and moved them over, laying Sara down on her back on the couch and then crawling over her.

“You know this is so very wrong, right?” Ava spoke up as she looked at the girl below her.

Sara nodded. “I know, but it feels so right and it’s not like I’m going to stop if you’re not going to.”

“Okay, good.”

And then she leaned down and kissed her again, this time more heated and passionate than the one before. It wasn’t long until they were in the middle of a make-out session and in that moment, they couldn’t care less about anything or anyone in the world. They were with the one they had wanted to be with for weeks now.

And honestly, fuck the rules. They just wanted to forget the world and only focus on each other for the time being and that was exactly what they were going to do.

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

Eventually, Sara had to leave. They had been reluctant to let each other go, but knew they had no other choice but to do so. Both had flushed cheeks by the time they pulled away and Sara had left Ava’s apartment with a little kiss on her cheek.

The moment Sara was gone, Ava had started smiling like an idiot. It had felt so good but oh-so-wrong at the same time. She knew there was no way in hell she should’ve done that, knew it was illegal and if anyone ever found out what happened, she could lose her job and be sent to prison. But when she had been kissing Sara, that had been the last thing on her mind. She had loved the feeling of Sara’s soft lips on hers and loved how she had traced her skin with her fingers.

If she was being honest she had to admit that no kiss ever felt so good as that one. And of course, the one person she had to feel that with, was the one person she could never be with.

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

When Ava went to school the next day, and it was the last class of the day, she had to calm herself down because she would see Sara again. She was excited, yet nervous about it. But when she spotted Sara’s friends walking in, she saw no Sara and was a little disappointed.

She shrugged it off though and just taught her class to the rest of the students. There must be a good reason she wasn’t here.

But it was when Sara didn’t come in for school any day of that week, that Ava started to worry. She had tried calling her, but always ended up on her voicemail and it wasn’t like Sara replied to her texts either.

She knew that Sara wasn’t sick, because she knew Sara would come to school whether she was sick or not.

That’s when she realized the only other possibility there was, was something having happened at home. There was no other explanation Ava could think of as to why Sara hadn’t shown up to school for a week and hadn’t returned any of her calls or replied to her texts.

If Sara did what Ava think she did, then she had to go find her, no matter how long that took.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOU'RE WELCOME PEOPLE  
> Okay but i need to explain a few things.  
>   
> \- If you've read this story very carefully, and remember all the details, you may have noticed that there already are two "diffferent" versions of Ava's parents in previous chapter and now I have written them yet differently. The first time I wrote about them, I said they're dead, the second time I said they had always been there for Ava and now I said her parents divorced, her mom has always been there for her and she hates her dad. Just know that I've changed this on my laptop, but not on here. You only need to remember this version of her parents though because this is the version i'm gonna go through with for a very simple reason that I'm gonna explain in the next point.  
>   
> \- The story of Ava's parents is not only her story but is the exact same story as mine, except that I have a sister and Ava doesn't. My parents divorced when I was five and I used to always cry before I had to go to my dad for the weekend (once every two weeks). When I was in sixth grade, we actually fought when he brought me and my sister back to my mom and I did actually throw the door shut into his face and broke contact with him that night and have not regretted it since. I hate him with a passion and I think it's horrible he chose his girlfriend (the one he cheated with on my mom) over his own daughters. It's been 4 years since that day now.  
>   
> \- I'd love if you'd leave me a comment and let me know what you think so I can know if people are actually enjoy my story. I enjoy writing it, but that doesn't necessarily mean people enjoy reading it.  
>   
> ^_^ that would've been all. thanks for reading this chapter and i'm gonna try to get the next one up soon.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so so sorry for taking so long to update. School has honestly been crazy. My exams start on Thursday and the teachers weren't allowed to give us any tasks due past last wednesday, so they all just gave us random assignments and tests and shssjjsjsjsj I hate them so much. 
> 
> But since my exams are coming up, it might take a while before I get another update up because I gotta study, although I prefer writing but my mom wouldn't be happy if I did that instead of studying.
> 
> Aaaaaaanywaaayyy. This chapter is a little shorter than what I usually try to write and I think it sucks, especially the last 200 or so words because I just wanted to get done with this chapter. Not that much happened but the next one will be important. 
> 
> With that said, enjoy reading this crap :)

Ava had been driving around for quite a few hours, stopping every now and then and asking people if they had seen Sara as she showed a picture of her. But she kept getting the same answer. No, they hadn’t. With every no, she lost a little more hope of finding Sara, but wasn’t going to stop until she did so.

But as it was nearing the evening, Ava was getting hungry as she hadn’t eaten all day, too busy looking for Sara. She decided that it was of no use continuing searching on an empty stomach, so she stopped at the first fast-food place she could find. She ordered the first thing on the menu, not caring about what it was, only wanting food so she could continue her search.

It wasn’t long until she had eaten all her food and could fully concentrate on finding Sara again.

She drove around for a few more hours, but it was dark outside and that didn’t really make things any easier. She wasn’t going to give up, though. She didn’t care if she would have to drive around until the morning without sleeping. Hell, she’d drive around for days if it meant finding Sara.

It was right after she had rubbed her eyes and yawned that she saw a blonde girl dressed in black run over the street. She suddenly was wide awake as she followed where the girl went and when she saw her walk into a building, she parked her car across the street and got out of the car, crossing the street and then walking into the building as fast as she possibly could. What she found was a lot of stairs that led up to what appeared to be the inside of a clock tower. She hadn’t really paid attention to the building before she walked in.

She started climbing the stairs and before she knew it, she reached the top. What she saw, made her a little sick in the stomach. There was filth everywhere and in the middle of the room, there was a mattress with what she guessed was supposed to be a blanket. She spotted a familiar backpack along the wall and it was only then that she spotted her.

“Sara?”

The girl turned around and looked at Ava in shock. “ _What_ are you doing here and how did you find me?”

“I drove around all day looking for you. I’m so glad I finally did, I was so worried.”

“Why? You’re my teacher. You’re not supposed to care for me or anything.”

“But I do! I do, okay? You hadn’t come into school all week and I was so worried. I just couldn’t sit there and do nothing. I had to come and find you. Where have you been all week?”

_When Sara came home that evening, the place she (once) called home was an absolute mess. It was even worse than when she had left two days ago. She watched where she set her feet as she made her way into the kitchen, unsure of what she’d find there, and honestly not even wanting to find out. But she knew she had to. She found her dad passed out on the floor and she sighed. She should’ve seen this coming. She should’ve been prepared for this, knew this was going to be the state she’d find her dad in, but wanting to believe something else, even if she knew she was just fooling herself._

_She didn’t even bother trying to wake him up because she knew he’d probably get mad and yell at her, so she just left him where he was, turned around and walked up the stairs to her room. There she took the dirty clothes out of her backpack and threw them into the laundry basket, replacing them with fresh clothing. She got out a duffle bag and filled it with more clothes before grabbing some other things she’d need. She also took money she found downstairs in the cupboard and then left the house. She went to the nearby grocery store and bought a whole bag of food she could take with her. She didn’t know where she was going yet, but she knew that she wouldn’t be going to one of her friend’s houses and most certainly not to Ava’s place._

_She wandered around for a while before she found a spot where she could sleep for a night. She sat against the wall, pulled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, resting her head on her knees. It was so cold, she had to put on an extra sweater or two and a jacket to warm herself up._

_After that night, she continued walking throughout the city and somewhere throughout the day, she found an abandoned clocktower. She had went in and what she found wasn’t ideal, but made herself comfortable anyway, knowing she’d survive there for a couple of days._

_In the following days, she barely left the building, only really leaving once to go to the grocery store and then immediately returning. The thing is, she didn’t like being in that clocktower, but there was no way in hell she was going to go back home. She just couldn’t. Her dad had crossed a line with the amount of alcohol he had drunk and then almost hit Sara with a bottle, almost hit how own daughter. It was in moments like these that she really missed her mom, but it wasn’t like she could just go over to her because she lived too far away. But she had considered moving to Central City a few times. It couldn’t be worse than it was at home, right?_

_But any time she though about moving, she also thought about how she’d leave all her friends and her entire life behind. She’d have to go to a new school for just a couple of months before she’d graduate and be off to college. So anytime she thought about it, she shook it from her mind because she decided it wasn’t worth it. She’d survive._

Ava was speechless as Sara explained everything and by the end of her explanation, Sara was crying, and Ava had to do her best to not burst out crying herself. She had pulled Sara into her and held her while she cried. She comforted her as best as she could and decided it would probably help the most if she didn’t say anything. Well, that’s how it worked for her anyway.

After a while, Sara spoke up as she pulled away from Ava’s embrace. “I just… it’s so hard to come home and see my dad like _that_. I really wish there was something I could do about it, but there’s nothing I can do and it freaking sucks. I really don’t want to, but right now, I hate my dad.”

“I know how you feel, you know. Well, not about your dad drinking, but about hating him, although I’m sure you don’t really hate him.”

“Well, no, but I’m really close to doing so right now.”

“I know. I hated my dad ever since I was five. That’s when he and my mom got divorced. I never liked going to him and when I was twelve, I stopped doing so because he chose his girlfriend over me anyway and I couldn’t live with that. I haven’t had contact with my dad for half of my life, and to me, it’s honestly the best thing that ever happened to me, but that doesn’t mean all dads are bad. If there’s anything I wish for everyone to have, it’s a good relationship with their parents, and that means both of them.”

“The relationship between me and my dad was fine. Great, actually. Until, well, you know. Everything has changed so much in so little time and I do not do well with change. I had such a hard time adjusting when my mom left, and besides the occasional calls, I never hear from her. It’s been over a year since I last saw her and even though I do miss and love her a lot, she and I never had the relationship me and my dad had. I just want that back.”

“I get that. And I really do hope you’ll be able to restore that relationship, but it has to come from both sides. Your dad will have to get better first. I don’t know how to do these kinds of things, but it will all be fine in the end. I promise you.”

For the first time that night, Sara looked up to meet Ava’s eyes. She could see the honesty, but there was something more than that. Sadness. Wonder. Admiration. Sara didn’t know what to think, but it wasn’t like she was thinking straight anyway.

“I know you won’t want to, but I’m taking you back to my place. You can stay as long as you want. No arguing about this because it’s not going to make me change my mind. I’m taking you home.”

Sara just looked at Ava and then smiled a little. “Thank you for everything. And by everything, I mean _everything_. I don’t know why you do what you’re doing, but I’m so grateful for it. I never thought a teacher would care this much about a student.”

_“But can’t you see that you’re so much more to me than just a student?”_ is what Ava wanted to reply, but she didn’t. She just smiled right back at Sara and then got on her feet, extending a hand to Sara to help her get up as well. She helped her gather her stuff and they walked down the stairs together. Ava opened the door for Sara after putting her stuff in the backseat.

“You okay?” Ava asked once they left.

“Yeah, I guess so. At least, I’ll be better off with you than I was at home or the clocktower.”

“True. And I did drive around all day to find you.”

“I have to ask, why did you want to find me so badly? I’m just another one of your students.”

“Because you hadn’t been to school all week and I was worried about you. I know I’m not supposed to care or anything, but I do, and I honestly don’t know why. I just do.”

Sara was speechless. Why would someone like her, a teacher nonetheless, care about someone like Sara? She was anything but a good student, doesn’t follow any rules and most certainly didn’t care about teachers. But then why was this teacher so different from the others?

“Wow, Ava, I- I don’t know what to say. If I’m being honest with myself, I most certainly don’t hate you anymore and I’d be really upset if anything happened to you, but I hadn’t looked at it like this yet.”

Sara’s words were followed by an awkward silence as the drive continued until they reached Ava’s apartment.

It wasn’t until they were actually inside her apartment that the silence was broken.

“Sara, I have to tell you something.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe leave me some kudos and a comment? :) :) :)


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to say a few things before you start reading this chapter.
> 
> 1\. There was some confusion last chapter because someone asked me if we were pretending the kiss didn't happen. I already replied to that person, but I just wanted to let you all know that, no, we're not pretending it didn't happen. Last chapter I just wanted to focus a little more on Sara and on what happened during that week and there just wasn't any room for Avalance (mehehehehe). But this chapter should make up for that ...  
> 2\. A LOT of things are happening in this chapter and there's a time jump as well (so it might be going a little fast for some people. Sorry about that.) because if there wasn't, my planning for this story didn't add up anymore.   
> 3\. Most of this chapter is conversation, but I think it fit better with this chapter and I just couldn't come up with things that weren't conversation so yeah. I think you'll like it anyway.  
> 4\. I'll say more at the end because I don't wanna spoil anything

_“Sara, I have to tell you something.”_

That was the first sentence of the conversation that would completely change Sara’s life. Well, the fact that Ava told her she cared about her had already changed her life. And as much as she was shocked by that, she would be even more shocked by what was yet to be said.

“What is it?” she replied, having absolutely no clue of what was to come.

“Well, you know how I told you I care about you?” Sara nodded. “It might be a possibility that I do a little more than just care?” Ava looked down at her hands.

“W- What do you mean?”

“I think you know what I mean. You kissed me for God’s sake.”

Sara was silent for a few seconds, thinking of what to reply. If she was being honest with herself, she knew exactly what Ava was talking about, because it was the same for her. When Sara told her she hadn’t looked at it like caring yet, she knew she was just fooling herself. She _had_ looked at it that way and had looked at it as even more than that. But she going to tell Ava that.

“If I recall correctly, you did kiss me back,” Sara replied with a smirk.

“I suppose I did.”

“And I don’t think you pulled away.”

“Neither did you.”

“True.”

“That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about. I know that it’s so very wrong, but I feel attracted to you in a way I never thought I’d feel attracted to anyone. I know you’re my student, but I just can’t help my feelings.”

“Wow, I, uh, wow. I mean, I guessed so because you kissed me back and it felt really _really_ good, but hearing you say it just makes everything so much more real. And just for the record, I do feel the same way, even if it feels wrong, it still feels so right.”

A smile spread over Ava’s face. “Can I kiss you?” It was barely a whisper, but it was loud enough for Sara to hear and start nodding.

Their faces got closer together and then their foreheads touched. They just smiled, but their expressions went back to serious as their lips touched.

The kiss was slow, anything but what the previous one had been. Sara took one of Ava’s hands in her own and the other one tangled in her hair. Ava put her free hand on Sara’s waist, but it wasn’t long before they pulled away.

“I really like you, Ava Sharpe.”

“I really like you too, Sara Lance.”

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

It had been three weeks since that night and both Ava and Sara couldn’t be happier. It was really hard to hide their relationship from everyone, but they succeeded anyway. Zari and Amaya noticed something had changed, but when they asked about it, Sara just shrugged it off by saying she had gotten help for her situation at home. And the boys, well, they didn’t even notice something had changed.

Sara had also spent almost every night at Ava’s place. She had slept in Ava’s bed, with Ava, but nothing more than that and she didn’t even mind. She was happy and there was nothing that could change that.

They were currently in bed together on Monday morning. It was Christmas break, so they didn’t have to worry about school and could stay in bed as long as they wanted to.

Sara had woken up before Ava, as she usually did. She loved waking up before her because that meant she could watch her sleep. Some people would consider her creepy, and she usually would too, but now that she actually had someone to do that with, she could see why people did it.

The thing is, since she slept in Ava’s bed with Ava usually being in her arms, even if she was the older one, she hadn’t gotten any nightmares.

It wasn’t long before Ava started stirring awake and opened her eyes. She turned around in Sara’s arms to face her and smiled.

“Hey,” she said, her voice hoarse.

“Good morning. Did you sleep well?”

She nodded. “Always whenever you’re here.”

Sara smiled at that and leaned down to give her a kiss.

“Okay, good,” she said when she pulled away only slightly. “Merry Christmas eve, by the way.”

“It’s Christmas eve?” Sara nodded and then Ava jumped out of bed. “Saraaaaaa, come on, we have to go to the grocery store to get things to make food.”

Sara chuckled. “You really do love Christmas, don’t you?” Ava nodded excitedly. “Sometimes I really wonder who’s the most mature person in this relationship.”

“Ha ha. I just can’t help it, okay? I know most people celebrate Christmas on the day itself, but my mom and I always celebrated it on Christmas eve and I just kept celebrating it on this day.”

“Shouldn’t you celebrate with your mom then?”

“I wish I could, but sadly she moved to Australia about two years ago. So we just facetime and talk for a while until one of us has to go.”

“I know you don’t talk to your dad anymore and you hate him, but do you send him a text or something?”

“He usually calls me on New Year’s Eve, right when the new year has started, and I usually never pick up.”

“I’m really sorry, you know? About the whole situation. I can’t imagine what that must be like.”

“It’s really fine. I never felt bad for what I did. I never cried over the fact that I don’t see him because he’s an ass and I don’t care about him.”

“Well, for me it’s hard to imagine hating your dad like that, but I’m not judging you or anything. I mean, I might hate my dad right now for what he has done, but deep down, I know I still love him.”

“I know. Anyway, go put on some clothes so we can go grocery shopping.”

“I’ll go put on clothes on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“You give me a kiss first.”

Ava laughed and pecked Sara’s lips before leaving the room to go put on clothes herself.

Once both of them were ready, both with an oversized hoodie with the hood pulled over their heads so they wouldn’t get recognized, they left to go to the grocery store.

“What do you want to eat?” Ava asked Sara as they walked into the grocery store.

“Oh, uhm, I don’t know. Maybe something simple? It honestly doesn’t matter to me as long as I get food.”

Ava laughed. “Okay, what do you think about steak?”

“I think that is an excellent idea.”

“Alright. What do you want to eat with it?”

“Hm, let me think. Fries, maybe?”

“That’s actually a great idea.”

“I know. I’m full of great ideas.” Ava rolled her eyes at that. “But then I do hope you’ve got mayo in your fridge.”

“Mayo is gross, so no, I don’t.”

“Yeah, no. If we’re going to be eating steak with fries, then there has to be mayo. It’s a basic rule.”

Ava shook her head. “No, because again, mayo is gross.”

“You may be a teacher, and a really good one might I add, but _I_ still got to teach _you_ a lot of things about good food. And mayo, my dear, is one of those foods.”

“You might think it’s good, and that’s fine, but there’s no way I’m going to be eating it.”

“Okay, fiiiinee, ugh. You’re such a stubborn woman.”

“Only to you.” Ava chuckled, and they continued their way through the store and got everything they needed, getting some stuff they didn’t need as well because it was Christmas after all and Ava just couldn’t resist Sara’s pleading eyes when she had asked for chocolate.

Once they were back at the apartment, they put everything away because they had a few more hours till they’d need to even start thinking about preparing food.

Sara sat down on the couch and waited for Ava to come join her. As she waited, she thought about the past three weeks. She could easily say they were the best three weeks of her life and wouldn’t trade them for the world. She had obviously went home, but that was only to get fresh clothes. Her dad was God knows where and it did hurt her to not see him, even if he’d be drunk, but she knew it was probably for the best. At this point, she also thought she might as well leave clothes at Ava’s place because she was there all the time. She did go to her friends’ houses for the night a few times, because it would be a bit too obvious if she didn’t.

But overall, she was always at Ava’s place and she loved it.

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

They woke up the following morning, legs tangled together, arms wrapped tightly around each other. Ava and Sara had had so much fun the previous night preparing food and then eating it together. After they ate, they watched a movie cuddled up on the couch with a blanket wrapped around them.

“Good morning,” Ava whispered when Sara opened her eyes and a smile spread across her face.

“Morning.” Sara pecked her lips. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.” Ava connected her lips with Sara’s for a longer kiss.

“I know that you’ll probably think it wasn’t necessary, but I got you something.”

“You did, huh?” Ava smirked, and Sara nodded. “I may have gotten you something too.”

“Did you now?”

“Let me get it.” She pulled away from Sara’s embrace, rolled over and reached under her bed for a small box. She turned back around and smiled at Sara. “Here you go,” she said and handed the box to her.

“Okay, hold on.” Sara stood up from the bed and walked to the closet. She rummaged through it for a few second before pulling something out and walking back to the bed, sitting instead of lying down. “This is for you.”

“Why thank you.”

They opened their presents at the same time and both smiled when they saw what they got.

“Aww, Sara, this is really cute, thank you so much.” Sara had gotten her a framed picture of them together.

“You’re very welcome. Mine isn’t anything like yours though. Ava, this must’ve cost a lot.”

“Nah, it was worth it.” Ava had gotten her a necklace with ‘Sara’ engraved in it.

“I love it.”

“I’m glad you do. I was worried you wouldn’t like it.”

“Are you insane? How could I not?”

“I don’t know. It could’ve been though.”

“Hm, no. Not a possibility.”

“If you say so.” Ava took the necklace and Sara held up her hair as Ava fastened it around her neck. “So beautiful,” Ava whispered.

“What? The necklace?”

“Yes, that. And you.”

Sara blushed. “Says the most stunning woman I have ever met.”

This time it was Ava’s turn to blush and smile. “We should probably get up.”

“I’m not the one who’s still lying down. I got out of bed already. And we could just stay here and cuddle.”

“We could. But if we get up, we can put on ugly Christmas sweater, fluffy socks that don’t match at all and make cookies just to eat them all later.”

“Hm, I do like that idea, Ms. Sharpe.”

“Please don’t call me ‘Ms. Sharpe’ when we’re not in school.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t like it.”

“I could think of a situation where you’d probably like it.” Sara smirked.

“Dream on, Lance,” Ava replied and got out of bed, leaving the room without looking back at Sara, but it wasn’t long before she heard footsteps behind her and she giggled when arms wrapped around her from behind.

“There’s no running away from me, Aves,” Sara said.

“Aves?”

“It’s called a nickname.”

Ava rolled her eyes and leaned back into Sara’s arms. “I know. But you’ve never called me that before.”

“I could stop if you want.”

“No, no. I like it.”

Sara’s eyes lit up. “You do?” Ava nodded. “Okay, good.”

“But then what should I call you?”

“Anything but peter pan.”

“Peter pan?”

“I never told you the story?”

Ava shook her head. “No, you didn’t. You’ll have to some day soon. But now I at least have a nickname for you as well,” Ava smirked.

“Oh, God. I should’ve just kept my mouth shut.”

“Probably, yes. But I don’t mind at all.”

“Obviously you don’t.”

“Now, what were you saying about wearing ugly Christmas sweaters, socks that aren’t much better and making cookies?”

“You actually don’t mind doing that? It’s what I do every Christmas, but we could do something else if you want to.”

“Nah, Christmas sweaters and making cooking are a great idea. As long as I get to spend the day with you, I’m happy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hehehehehehe you're welcome. I originally wrote something else for this chapter as well, but then I realized that wasn't to come until like chapter 16 or so. But I'll tell you about it once we're there.
> 
> My exams also started today so I won't have as much time to write as I normally do so it could be a while before the next update, but I'm hoping to get some time to write during the weekend. Although, I have my maths exam on Monday so probs not. We'll see.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooooo pretty sure I failed the first part of my maths exam and in lost at least 10 out of 60 points in the second part. But I managed to write this, so I'm good :)  
> Enjoy

For the next few weeks, Ava and Sara managed to sneak around without anyone finding out. They had found quite the routine for themselves and couldn’t be happier. After school, Sara would go home to get a change of clothes and would then walk to Ava’s place where she’d do her homework while Ava would prepare her classes for the following day. When they were both done, they’d cuddle on the could and talk about their day before watching some television. Then Ava would start preparing food and they’d have dinner together. After that, Sara would either stay or go to one of her friends’ houses, but whatever she decided, she always helped doing the dishes first. In the morning, Sara usually caught a ride with Amaya and Zari. When she stayed at Ava’s, she’d tell them to pick her up at the park that wasn’t far from her house because it only was about a mile from Ava’s apartment as well. Then they went through the school day and their routine would start all over again.

What also happened in the past few weeks was that Amaya and Zari had gotten together. Sara’s first reaction when they told her was ‘finally’ and when the reaction from the boys was about the same. Even Nate was happy for them. Sara had been wanting them to get together for a long time and it made her happy to see her friends so in love. Another reason that she was happy they were together was that it made them oblivious to see Sara was in love herself.

There it was. Sara was in love with Ava. It felt so wrong, yet so right. She was sure that Ava didn’t feel the same. At least, not yet. She hoped that someday she will. Although, if she didn’t, Sara would understand. She as only a student after all. But then she started searching an answer as to why Ava would risk everything just to be with Sara. You don’t just risk your whole career _and_ risk the possibility of going to jail if anyone ever found out, right?

She shook the thought from her head and got out of bed. Ava had left earlier because she had some thing that Sara couldn’t even remember what it was.

She walked into the kitchen, only wearing one of Ava’s shirts and a pair of shorts and smiled when she saw a note on the fridge.

_Sara-_

_You know where you can find food because it’s not as if it’s the first time you’ve been here. I’ll be home around noon, hopefully. And it’s not because it’s Saturday that you don’t need to do your homework. If it’s done by the time I return, I might reward you…_

_-Ava_

Sara smirked. They had had sex for the first time about two weeks ago and ever since then, they got it on whenever they had the chance, which basically was every day.

She grabbed a bowl and some cereal from the cupboard, got the milk from the fridge and took a spoon before sitting down at the breakfast bar. As she started eating, she decided to send Ava a text.

[From: Sara  
To: Ava  
Morning, Aves. The bed was cold this morning without you. Looking forward to later though… Missing you xx]

As she pressed ‘send’, she smiled and then opened Instagram. Zari had posted a picture of her and a sleeping Zari and Sara commented ‘cuties’ with a few heart eyes emojis behind it. She liked some other posts from her friends and then switched to Snapchat. She sent her morning streaks and opened the other snaps she had received until she got a text back from Ava.

[From: Ava  
To: Sara  
You know you only get your reward when you’ve actually done your homework, right? Miss you too xx]

Sara smiled but didn’t reply. She didn’t want to keep Ava from whatever she was doing and decided to do her homework because she did really want that reward.

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

Ava woke up early that morning and smiled when she saw Sara peacefully asleep against her. Sara’s left arm lay on Ava’s chest and her head had found a spot on her shoulder to rest on. Ava’s hand was holding Sara’s and her other arm was under Sara’s body. Their legs were tangled together, and Ava found it extremely difficult to stop a chuckle from escaping her throat. She snoozed the alarm that had woken her up and let herself enjoy a few more moments with her girlfriend before finally having to pull away. The process of doing that was a slow and difficult one because she didn’t want to wake Sara up, but eventually she managed to get away from her warm embrace. She walked into the bathroom and took a quick shower. After she finished showering, followed by drying herself off, she put on a black t-shirt which she tucked into a pair of dark blue jeans. She put on her black adidas shoes and then grabbed her stuff but didn’t leave before leaving Sara a note telling her to do her homework and that she’d get a reward if she finished it by the time she returned.

She drove to the breakfast place she’d be meeting up with Oliver and Felicity. When she walked in, she didn’t see either of them and decided to just go ahead and sit down at one of the tables and ordering something for herself. It was only about five minutes after she had arrived that she spotted her friends walk in. Ava waved to them and they smiled when they saw her. Felicity was about three months along now and you could see her bump already. Now that she had entered her second trimester, Oliver was extra protective of her, but it’s not that he wasn’t protective over her already before her pregnancy.

“Hi,” she said once they sat down at the table.

“Hey. How are you doing?”                                                                                                         

“I’m good, really good actually. What about you guys?”

“Doing so much better now I don’t throw up all the time anymore.”

Ava laughed at that and then her food arrived, at Oliver and Felicity ordered something too, which only took about ten minutes to arrive.

“So, Ava, any reason as to why you’re so happy lately?” Felicity asked once they were half way through eating their breakfast.

Ava chocked on her food at that question and started coughing. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I know you’ve been happier the past weeks, and judging by the look in your eyes, I’d say you’re in love because it’s the same look Oliver has when he looks at me. So, let me rephrase my question. Who’s the reason to your happiness?”

Ava tried her best to keep breathing. Had it been that obvious? She knew she was in love. God, she was so in love with Sara even is she didn’t want to admit it yet.

“And don’t try to lie to me, because I’ll be able to tell.” Oliver nodded as to confirm his wife’s statement.

“Okay, there _might_ be someone in my life.”

“I think I’ve got a pretty good idea of who she is. And if I’m right, you should be careful.”

Ava sucked in a breath. “Who do you think she is?” She was so hoping her friend was going to say anyone but Sara.

“It’s Sara, isn’t it.”

That’s it. The entire world around her stopped as she took in Felicity’s words. _‘It’s Sara, isn’t it?’_ How does Felicity know that? It’s not like it’s written across her face or anything. But yet she managed to find out.

Ava’s face went pale at the words and that was only one more confirmation to Felicity.

“H- how?”

“First of all, you don’t look at any of your students the way you look at Sara and the moment you started having this look in your eyes, Sara did too. Then it wasn’t hard to put two and two together. I’ve known for quite a while actually.”

“And you’re … _okay_ with it?”

“We both are, actually,’ Oliver cut in. “I’ve known Sara for a long time and I’ve never seen her this happy. Laurel’s death really got to her and when I heard she was talking to you about it, I felt relieved because I could see how much it helped her. When she was younger, she was this carefree kid that didn’t give a shit about the world, but she changed and turned into this rebel, I guess. But that was only the outside. You managed to bring back the good side of her and I will forever be grateful for that.”

“Wow. Okay. So that means you’re not going to report it or tell anyone or something?”

Oliver and Felicity shook their head at the same time. “Even if you might not realize it yet, you love Sara and she loves you back. And even if your love is wrong and illegal, there’s no way we should get between that.”

“Thank you, guys. This really means a lot to me.”

“Just know that, if you hurt her, I _will_ hunt you down,” Oliver said, and Felicity laughed.

“You’re not being serious, right?”

“He is,” Felicity said.

“Oh God.”

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

“Sara? You here?” Ava called out as she entered her apartment.

“I’m in the bathroom,” Sara yelled back.

She smirked and dropped her stuff on the couch and then walked over to the bathroom, knocking on the door.

“You can come in,” came Sara’s reply.

Ava opened the door and was met to a Sara with only a towel wrapped around her body.

“Now, this is a sight I could get used to come home to,” She smirked.

“Well, I was just about to shower. You could join me if you want.”

“I did already shower this morning when you were being a lazy ass and was still asleep.”

“First of all, it’s the weekend so there’s no way I was getting up early. And second of all, who was talking about a shower to get cleaned?” Sara tried to look as innocent as she possibly could but couldn’t help the smirk that soon enough covered her face.

“You sneaky little ba-” She didn’t have time to finish her sentence as her words were cut off by Sara’s lips crashing on her own. She moaned into the kiss and wrapped her arms around Sara’s neck and pulled her closer.

“Oops,” Sara said when she let her towel drop.

“You did not.”

“I did.”

“You’re going to be the death of me,” Ava said and with that started pulling of her clothes herself.

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

When they lay in bed later that night, Ava was stroking Sara’s back.

“Aves?”

“Hm?”

“What would you think of me going back to my house tomorrow to grab some clothes I can leave here? I mean, you don’t have to give me an answer right now because it’s a huge step. Well, not really though because I’m here like every day bu-”

“I think that’d be absolutely amazing.”

“Really?”

Ava nodded. “As you said, you’re already here like every day and it’d only be more convenient for you to have some of your stuff at my place. I’ll empty a drawer for you first thing tomorrow morning.”

This time Sara was the one to nod her head. “I have a question though.”

“Shoot.”

“Would you mind coming with me? It’s one thing to just go grab some fresh clothes after school, but it’s a whole other thing to actually move some of my things and I think I’m not ready to face my dad alone if he’s there and comes asking questions.”

“Of course, I’ll come with you.”

“Thank you.”

“Anytime, you know that, right?”

“I do.”

“Okay good. Are you tired?” Sara nodded. “Then sleep. Tomorrow will be kind of a big day for you and you should be well rested.”

“You’re probably right.”

“I’m always right,” Ava laughed.

“Debatable.” But Sara couldn’t hide the little smile that soon covered her face.

“Goodnight, Sara.”

“Night, Aves.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry it ook me like two weeks to update, but exams happened and then I went out with my friends and then went to the beach with my classmates and French teacher and then I had to pick up my grades. Then when I wanted to write last saturday, i found out my laptop didn't want to charge anymore and it only had 10% left so I quickly sent the documents from this story (there are 3, 2 of which don't matter to you but I can't live without. i'll explain it at the end) and then my laptop completely died. And of course, being as stupis as i am, i never made a backup of my stuff and if i bring it into the store and they send it back, everything going to be deleted and I can't have that. So I'm bringing it to a friend tomorrow who is able to do a backup even while my laptop is dead and doesn't charge and all that. And then I'm bringing it to the store and smzjfsdfmozf  
> So it might take a while before another update.  
> Anyway, enjoy this chapter, it's a good one. I'll explain some more stuff at the end.

Monday came around and Sara should’ve known something was going to happen. She should’ve known she wouldn’t be able to be this happy forever.

It all started in the morning when she woke up. Ava wasn’t next to her and she had frowned, getting out of bed and finding her girlfriend in the bathroom, hanging above the toilet. Sara had held her hair for her and had rubbed and patted her back as she threw up.

“Don’t worry, I’m not pregnant,” Ava had said once she cleaned up.

Sara had cracked a smile. “Seems pretty impossible to me.”

“Exactly. I’m not feeling well, though.”

“I can tell. Maybe you should stay home today. There’s no use for you going in to teach just to make a bunch of other people sick as well.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. I’ll call the school.”

“Wow.”

“Wow what?”

“I had expected you to put up more of a fight. You really must not be feeling well.”

Ava laughed a little at that. “Jerk. I think I’m going back to bed.” Sara glared at her. “What?”

“There’s no way you’re getting back in bed with your face covered in vomit. You, Ms. Sharpe, are going to shower with me first.” It was Ava’s turn to glare, at which Sara just rolled her eyes. “I meant to actually shower. You know, with soap. A shower to get cleaned. Not one to get dirty.” Sara couldn’t help but let a laugh escape. “Come on. Let me help you get out of these clothes.”

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

“Hey, guys,” Sara said as she walked into the cafeteria during lunch and sat down at the table her friends were sitting at.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in. We thought you were skipping school,” Ray said.

“Hm, that was actually my original plan. But it was insisted upon that I come to school or I’d apparently miss too much.”

“Isn’t that a coincidence though? You’re skipping school on the say Ms. Sharpe isn’t here,” Amaya spoke up.

“Sharpe’s sick?” Sara pretended to be surprised.

“Yeah. Apparently, she had a stomach bug or something,” Mick said and shrugged.

“Well, at least that mean less class for us so that’s a good thing.”

Zari eyes her suspiciously. If it were a few months back, Sara would’ve laughed at it and be enthusiastic about their teacher being sick. But she had noticed something had changed. She just couldn’t quite figure out what it was. She had known Sara long enough to know when she was lying or not and she could tell that her friend was not at all surprised when she heard Ms. Sharpe wasn’t at school.

Zari shrugged it off for the time being. She’d figure it out later.

“What class do we have now?” Sara asked.

“French,” Nate replied.

“Ooh, that’s going to be fun,” she said as she rolled her eyes. “I don’t know how Gary even got his degree, to be honest. My dog’s French is better than his.”

“You don’t have a dog.”

“Exactly my point.” The group laughed. “I mean, it’s not that I like French or anything, quite the opposite, but we don’t learn anything at all.”

“Yeah, even Ray almost falls asleep during that class. And that says a lot,” Zari said.

The rest of the conversation was lost to Sara as she looked at her phone and saw a text from Ava.

[From: Ava

To: Sara

I’m going to go get some medicine, but I might not be back yet by the time you get home. Just warning ya! Missing you already xx]

Sara smiled at the text and quickly replied _‘Okay :) Missing you too xx’_. When she reread the text, it suddenly hit her Ava used the word ‘home’ to describe her apartment. Was that Sara’s home? If she was being honest, Ava’s apartment felt more like home to her right now than the house she’s lived in her entire life. But then she realized that her home was anywhere her girlfriend was. _‘Home isn’t a place. It’s the people in it,’_ she remembered from watching ‘Once Upon a Time’ with Ava. Had Sara found her home?

Her thoughts were interrupted when Zari nudged her shoulder.

“What is it?” she asked so only Sara would hear.

“Hm? Nothing.”

Zari glared at her. “Uh huh. Sure, there’s no reason at all as to why you smiled at your phone like an idiot and then got completely lost in your thoughts. Why would I even think there’s a reason for that?” Sara bit the inside of her cheek and looked down at her hands in her lap that were holding her phone. “Oh my,” Zari gasped as she realized something. “You’re in love, aren’t you?” Sara didn’t dare meet her friend’s gaze as she knew her eyes would give everything away. “You can tell me, you know.”

Sara sighed in defeat and threw her head back. “Can we talk about this some other time? Preferably a time where we’re not surrounded by a thousand other kids?”

“You’re coming back to my house after school.”

“I can’t. I have stuff to do.”

Zari eyed her suspiciously. “Tomorrow then.”

“Maybe. I don’t know if I’ll have time.”

“Oh, hell yes you’ll have time. If you don’t come, I’m going to drag your ass to my house myself.”

“Okay fine. You win. I’ll come by tomorrow.”

“Good. You had no other choice anyway.”

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

Sara sat on the couch in Ava’s apartment, her home, waiting for her girlfriend to come home. It was still weird for her to refer to her teacher as her girlfriend, but she wouldn’t change it for the world. That’s why, since Valentine’s day was right around the corner, she had made reservations at a restaurant right outside Star City. It wasn’t anything super fancy, but it was better than take-out and the chances of running into someone they knew were minimized.

She was so lost in thought, she didn’t hear Ava coming in. It was only when she was standing right behind her and placed a kiss on the top of her head that she noticed her.

“Hey,” she said.

Ava quickly walked around the couch and plopped down next to Sara. “Hey,” she sighed. “How was school.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Sara muttered. “Are you feeling any better already?”

“Yeah, a bit. I’m probably still going to stay home tomorrow but I’m most certainly returning the day after.”

“Okay good. School was weird without you, even if I didn’t have English this afternoon. And I think Zari’s onto me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, apparently I was smiling like an idiot when you sent me that text, and then she just put two and two together I guess and now she’s asking if I’m in love with someone. She’s also forcing me to come to her house tomorrow to talk about it.”

“Do you think she might figure it out about us?”

“At this point, I really don’t know. I mean, Zari may not always show it, especially not in class, but she’s actually really smart.”

“I figured. Sometimes her questions are just too dumb to be true.”

“They really are. I don’t know how teachers haven’t figured that out yet. Well, besides you of course, because you’re really smart.”

“I wouldn’t say really smart, but I’d most definitely say smart.”

“Of course you would.” Sara rolled her eyes and laughed. “Besides being sick, how was your day?”

“Uneventful. After you left, I slept for like half an hour before waking up again. Then I texted you and it took me another 45 minutes to leave and then I got back home, and well, you know.”

“Well, that’s boring.”

“Being sick _is_ boring.”

“Fair enough. Anyway, I’m not feeling like doing homework. Can we just cuddle for a bit?”

“Sure, just make sure it’s done by the time we go to sleep, okay?”

“Mkay.” Sara snuggled into Ava’s side, getting into a comfortable position and closed her eyes.

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

The following day, Ava didn’t go into school yet, but at least Sara didn’t skip class. After school, she had quickly texted Ava saying she was going back to Zari’s place first and told her she would come by later. Ava had responded _‘Okay :)’_. Then she had put away her phone and focused on what was coming.

“Okay, tell me everything,” Zari said once they were in her room. She hadn’t even given Sara the chance to put her bag down.

“Calm down, Z. There’s nothing to tell.”

“Oh, that’s bullshit, and you know it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Sara, avoiding looking her friend in the eyes at all costs.

“Come on, Sara. You were smiling like an idiot at your phone the other day, you’ve been so much happier for the last I don’t know how many weeks, maybe even months and you have this look in your eyes.”

“What look?”

“The same look Amaya has when she looks at me or the other way around. The look of someone in love. So tell me, who is the lucky guy or girl?”

“Okay fine, I may or may not have been seeing someone. But I’m not going to tell you her name.”

“That narrows it down to about 3.5 billion people. You know I’m going to figure it out anyway, right? Do I know her.”

“You do. But I’m not telling you who it is. I just can’t.”

It was silent for a while before Zari spoke up again. “You can kill me if the answer to my next question isn’t ‘yes’, well, you’re probably going to kill me anyway for even asking this, but is it Ms. Sharpe?”

Sara’s eyes shot up, and if they could, they would’ve killed Zari by now. “How?” It was barely a whisper.

“She got the same look in her eyes the moment you did. I only put two and two together yesterday, though.”

Sara was still speechless, her mouth hung open.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell anyone. I’m just happy for you guys.”

“You can’t tell _anyone_ , not even Amaya. Please, Zari.”

“That’s what I just said, but okay. Sara, I’ve known you for so long and I’ve never seen you so happy. And I think that you deserve that happiness after everything you’ve been through the past months. And in all honesty, I’ve always known this would happen eventually. Whether it was still during school or after graduation, from the first day I’ve known you two would end up together.”

“You do realize that our relationship is wrong, right?”

Zari nodded. “I do, and I don’t care. Because it turns out, at the end of the day, love is worth the risk.”

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

It was the evening before Valentine’s day and Ava and Sara were getting ready for bed.

“Ava, can you come here for a second?”

“Alright, what is it?” she said as she walked over to the couch.

“Sit,” Sara said, patting her lap.

Ava chuckled before sitting down in Sara’s lap and kissing the top of her head.

“I just wanted to thank you for everything you’ve done for me these past weeks. Well, these past months really. It means so much to me and I never thought I’d have someone like you in my life.”

“Aww, Sara, you’re going to make me cry. You know I did everything because I wanted to help you and it warms my heart to see you happy again.”

“You know what the reason is that I’m so happy?” Ava shook her head. “It’s you.”

“Sara…”

“Ava, you honestly mean so much to me. I know that we’ve only been together for like two and a half month, but it feels like so much longer. In these past months, you’ve become the reason I smile and the reason I wake up. And I know that our relationship is anything but legal, but I don’t care about that.” Sara took a deep breath. “Because, and I know it’s probably really fast for me to say, but I love you, Ava Sharpe.”

Ava was at a loss for words. Was she dreaming? She couldn’t believe what she had just heard Sara say and her mind trailed off as she thought about the words. _‘I love you’_. These most certainly weren’t easy words and over the past few months she had realized Sara didn’t just go around and say them to anyone, so she knew that she was being serious.

“I…” She couldn’t think straight, couldn’t get any words out of her mouth.

“You obviously don’t have to say the words back yet. I’d understand if you didn’t feel the same. Although I really hope you will someday.”

Ava shook her head and finally managed to get some words out. “Will you just let me finish already?”

“Okay.”

“I… I love you too, Sara.”

A huge smile spread across Sara’s face and it wasn’t long before one took over Ava’s face as well. Ava leaned down and put her lips on Sara’s.

Let’s just say, they didn’t get that much sleep that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Naaawhhhh they love each other. aren't they the cutest?
> 
> Okay so to explain more. While I had exams, I planned out the rest of this fic, because I only had until chapter 16. That's where the two documents that don't matter to you come in. One is basically a summary of each chapter and the other is the time line for the story because i always forget that. If I don't make any changes to the plans, this fic will have 35 chapter in total (34 chapter + epilogue). It could still change, but probably not. Just wanted to let you guys know my plans for this. Once this fic is finished, I might post those two documents on here and add pictures of my plans when I originally wrote them on paper. I'm telling you, it took me a while to figure them out after I wrote them.  
> Anyway, I'm probably annoying you so imma go now. Bye.
> 
>  
> 
> Ps: comments might have me update sooner :) not forcing you to comment tho, just sayin'


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the long wait, but I still don't have my laptop back. Well, I did, but when I got home after picking it up from the store, i noticed half of my keyboard wasn't working so I had to bring it back (it also still had the same problem as before) so idk how long it's gonna be until I have it back. It also took me so long to write this chapter and idk why. It's only a filler really and i just kinda lost my inspiration. my Original plans for this chapter were very different from what i've written, but oh well. I've also been writing another one shot (not finished yet) which is based on a dream I had and i think it's gonna be really good. 
> 
> This chapter also involves Olicity. Just sayin' :)

“Where are you taking me?” Ava asked as they walked down to her car.

“Hm, wouldn’t you like to know? It’s called a surprise so just give me your car keys already. I promise I won’t crash us into anything.”

“Okay fine.” Ava threw the keys to Sara. “This better be a good surprise or I’m breaking up with you,” she joked.

“You would never break up with me for that reason. And I don’t know if it’s good, seeing as I’ve never been there myself.” They got into the car and Sara drove off, a smirk on her face as she held her girlfriend’s hand. “I promise you’ll love it.”

“Okay, I trust you.”

“Good,” Sara said and lifted Ava’s hand to her lips, placing a small kiss on her knuckles before returning her attention to the road again.

Most of the way to the ‘secret destination’ was spent in silence, but the silence was anything but awkward. In fact, it was the most comfortable silence either had ever been in.

“Sara…” Ava said once they arrived at the restaurant.

“It’s nothing really fancy, but I’ve been here before and the food is to die for. And since we’re just outside of Star City, it’s very unlikely we’re going to run into someone we know.”

“Have I told you how much I love you yet today?”

“You may have told me once or twice, but I’ll never get tired of hearing you say it,” Sara smirked as she wrapped her arms around Ava.

“Well, I love you. Thank you for bringing me here.”

“You know I’d do anything for you because I love you too.”

They kissed and then they intertwined their hands before walking into the restaurant. After Sara said her name, they were brought to a booth and took a seat.

“Wow, it’s really beautiful here.”

“I know, right? When I was younger, my dad used to take me and my sister here all the time. We always sat in that booth over there,” Sara said, pointing to the other side of the room. “My sister and I always ordered the same thing and my dad would snap a picture of us with our fries each time we came.” She paused for a moment, taking a deep breath before continuing. “I don’t know what changed but over the past few years, we’d come less frequently and eventually we didn’t come at all anymore. The last time we came was about six months before, well, you know.”

“I’m really sorry, Sara.”

“Don’t be. It’s not your fault. There’s nothing that you could’ve done to change the things that happened. There’s nothing _I_ can do to change anything, and it honestly sucks.” She was trying really hard not to let any tears slip from her eyes, but a few managed to fall anyway.

“Oh, baby.” Ava grabbed Sara’s hand and pulled it to her lips. “If I could, I’d take away any pain you have ever went through because you don’t deserve that. You deserve love and happiness so please don’t cry.”

Sara smiled a little and wiped the tears away. “This night is about us.”

“Exactly why I don’t want you to cry.”

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

“Thank you for tonight, it was amazing,” Ava said once they arrived back at her apartment.

“Yeah? You liked it? I thought the beginning might have made you dislike the entire thing.”

“Never. If anything, it was nice to know that you’re breakable as well. Because you always pretend to be this tough person who doesn’t get hurt by anything, but you’re actually not.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m actually just a big softie on the inside.”

“You really are. Do you want to cuddle and watch tv on the couch or just cuddle in bed?”

“I have an idea. Well, for the future, not tonight. You get another tv for in your bedroom so we can cuddle and watch tv in bed. But for tonight, cuddle in bed, please.”

“Okay. And I’ll think about it.”

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

The following few weeks were the same as all the ones before. They had the same routine, but Sara would stay even more nights. Before, she stayed four or five days out of seven, and now she would stay six or even all nights. Ava had quickly become Sara’s favorite person in the whole world and she couldn’t even begin to imagine her life without Ava in it anymore. They were the happiest and best versions of themselves when they were with each other.

Besides Zari and Felicity, there was no one who knew about their relationship. And even though it sucked, they knew they had no other choice but keep it a secret if they wanted to stay with each other.

Zari occasionally asked Sara about their relationship and how they were doing, and each time Sara would answer that they were doing great and couldn’t be happier. Zari would smile at her and tell her she was happy for them, which she was. It kept surprising Sara that Zari could actually keep a secret this big.

Oliver and Felicity also hadn’t told anyone, which Ava was really grateful for. Felicity was now five months pregnant and when they weren’t both teaching, Oliver refused to leave her side at any moment. Ava thought it was adorable. Felicity sometimes found it annoying, but in the end, she was really grateful for it.

Ava had made plans with them that day, because it had been a long time since they’d hung out. Felicity had invited Ava over for dinner at her and Oliver’s house and told her not to bring anything this time. And the thing what immediately made Ava agree to go was the fact that they had invited Sara over as well. When she had asked Sara if she wanted to come, that same day, Sara had been reluctant at first, because they were her teachers. But then Ava had said that Sara shouldn’t see them as her teachers, but as her girlfriend’s friends. Eventually, Ava had promised Sara they’d get ice cream the following day, and of course, being the teenager she is, had immediately agreed to go.

Sara had also made Ava promise they wouldn’t talk about anything school related.

“Aves, what should I wear?” Sara was standing in front of the closet, wondering what she’d wear to the dinner.

Ava walked out of the bathroom, a towel around her still wet body and water dripping down on the floor. “Just something casual. An everyday outfit. We’re not going to a fancy restaurant. It’s just Oliver and Felicity.”

“Hm, I guess so. I’d ask you to help me pick it out, but you’re way too distracting right now.”

Ava rolled her eyes. “Like you mind me walking around like this.”

“Never said I did. I only said you’re distracting.”

“Right. Whatever. Just get some jeans maybe and a t-shirt. Pair them with your sneakers and put your hair up in a ponytail. You’ll be good to go then.”

“Okay, thanks. Now go away or you and I both know this won’t end with us getting dressed. And I think your friends would appreciate it if we get there on time.”

“Yeah, they would appreciate it. I’ll go back to the bathroom while you get dressed. Could you hand me my black jeans and red flannel, please?”

“Only if I get a kiss in return,” Sara said and handed Ava her clothes, getting a quick kiss in return, knowing it would lead to something else if it the kiss lasted longer than half a second.

They both finished getting ready and soon enough, it was time for them to leave. The drive to the Queen house was only a twenty minute one. When they arrived there, they realized they were ten minutes early, so they decided to stay in the car for five more minutes.

“Are you nervous,” Ava asked.

“Yeah, a bit. It’s just weird, you know? I see them as my teachers. Well, I mean, I’ve known Oliver basically my entire life, but I haven’t seen him outside of class this entire year so it’s weird. Especially because you’re here as well. Not that I don’t want you here because you know I love nothing more than to be around you.”

“Yeah, I get it. But I’m your teacher as well, so technically, it’s the same.”

“Aves, you know that’s different. You’re so much more than just my teacher. You’re my girlfriend and I love you. I could never compare you to any other teacher.”

“I guess you have a point.” Ava checked the tome on her phone. “It’s 6.24. I’m sure they won’t mind if we’re six minutes early.”

“Probably not.”

“Knowing Felicity, she’s been waiting for us for the past half an hour. Come on, let’s go.”

They got out of the car and intertwined hands as they walked up to the front door. Ava rang the bell and within five second, Felicity opened the door.

“Hi, I’m so happy you both came, come in.”

Ava and Sara greeted Felicity as they walked into the living room. The first thing they both noticed was the delicious smell of food being prepared. Oliver was in the kitchen and only said a quick hello as he didn’t want to burn the food.

“It’s really nice to have you here, Sara,” Felicity said.

“It’s nice to be here, Ms. Smoak, although it’s a little weird to be in a teacher’s house.

“Oh, I’m sure there’s only one teacher’s place where you enjoy being. And you can call me Felicity outside of class.”

“Well, yeah, with Ava it’s a little different. And I know this must be weird for you as well, having a student at your house.”

“Are you kidding, outside of class, you’re Sara, girlfriend of my best friend. Just like outside of class, I’m Felicity, best friend of your girlfriend.”

Sara simply smiled in response.

Ava quickly jumped in to break the awkwardness that was currently hanging in the room. “So, Felicity, do you know if you’re having a boy or a girl yet?”

“We do, actually,” she replied as she lead Ava and Sara to the table and sat down.

“Can you please tell us what you’re having? I’m dying to know,” Ava said right as Oliver walked in and put food on the table before sitting down himself.

“Do you mind if I tell them?” Felicity asked Oliver.

“Absolutely not. They trusted us with their secret, I think we can trust them with ours.”

“Okay then. Well, in about four months, we’re welcoming a little girl into the world.”

“Awwww, I’m so happy for you. I’m guessing you won’t tell us what her name will be?”

“We actually haven’t even decided on that yet. Every name we come up with, just doesn’t seem to fir her, you know. We might even wait until she’s born to pick a name. That way, we’ll have seen her face already.”

“Seems like a great idea.”

They talked about other stuff as they started to eat. Both Sara and Ava complimented Oliver on his cooking. It was delicious and by the time they got to dessert, they were all too full to completely finish it.

As the evening came to an end, Ava and Sara left around 10 pm. It was such a great evening though, and Sara had found herself actually enjoying spending time with Oliver and Felicity. They were great people and they would make the best parents and kid could ever wish for. Oliver was so protective over Felicity, not even letting her clean off the table when they were done eating, and Sara thought it was adorable. She hoped that one day, she and Ava would be that way. She certainly saw herself spending the rest of her life with Ava, even if they had only been together four months.

Sara was so lost in her thoughts, she hadn’t even noticed Ava pulling up into the parking lot of her apartment building.

“You okay, babe?” Ava snapped her out of her thoughts.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good. Just thinking about us.”

“About us?”

“Yeah, well, I saw how protective Oliver was of Felicity and I couldn’t help but think that could be us one day, you know.”

“I’ve thought about that too, but it warms my heart to know you think the same way as me.”

“Always.”

They got out of the car and went to Ava’s apartment. They immediately changed into some pajamas and then cuddled in Ava’s bed as they watched some show on Netflix on the tv Ava had bought for her bedroom just three weeks ago.

It wasn’t long until they fell asleep in each other’s arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay guys, could you maybe drop some names for girls in the comments, because I have no inspiration and my friends refuses to let me use her name for the Olicity baby.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys, I FINALLY have my laptop back. I'm so happy. 
> 
> Also, a few chapter ago i said that i had planned out the rest of this story and it would be 34 chapter + epilogue, but i moved the events from chapter 17 to this chapter so it might be 33 chapter + epilogue in the end. We'll see. 
> 
> I hope y'all enjoy this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it :)

There were so many colleges she could go to, too many to pick. She had been accepted into four out of seven colleges she applicated to. It was halfway April and the deadline to decided which school she would attend was right around the corner.

The thing was, she had absolutely no idea which one she wanted to go to, or if she even wanted to go at all. She didn’t mind school that much anymore in the past few months, but she was tired of always having to do homework and always having to study. She didn’t really feel like going to school for another four years.

She decided to talk to Ava about it, even is she knew she’d tell her to go to college, that it was important for her future and that she wouldn’t be able to do anything without a degree.

And it had went exactly that way.

“Aves, you home?” she said as she walked in the apartment. She had gone to Zari’s place after school to do homework, only the two of them. Amaya would have joined them too, but she had family from outside the city over to her house and her mom had insisted she came home straight after school. At first, Sara and Zari had actually done some homework, but after about half an hour, they were lying on Zari’s bed, talking to each other about anything that wasn’t homework related. It had been fun, sure, but Sara knew that she’d have to do the rest of her homework, which included something for English, with Ava around and that would be a challenge on its own.

“Yeah, I’m in the bedroom. I’ll be with you in a second.” Sara plopped down on the couch and pulled out her phone, scrolling through her Instagram feed until Ava sat down on the other end of the couch. “Why are you so far away?”

“Well, technically, I was here first, so it was you who decided to sit this far away from me. You could’ve sat right next to me, where I could’ve kissed you and then cuddled into you, but you decided you didn’t want that, so it’s not my fault I’m this far away from you.”

Ava knew Sara was right, but she’d had a long day and really wasn’t in the mood to do any more thinking. All she wanted to do was watch tv, cuddle with Sara, order takeout and then go to bed. Even though she’d done it for quite a few months now, teaching still was tiring. To top that, every class she’d had to teach seemed to be in a bad mood. Everyone kept asking her questions about something she’d explained at least five times already. She had been on the verge of snapping but had been saved by the bell. Literally.

“Yeah, I know. Can you come here, though? I really just want to hug you.”

“Hey, are you okay?” Sara asked as she leaned into Ava’s side and tucked her head in the space between Ava’s head and shoulder.

“No? I mean, I’m okay. It’s just been such a long day and all I want to do is lay with you for the rest of the day.”

“We can arrange that.” Sara pushed her body deeper into Ava’s and Ava wrapped her arms around her shoulders and leaned her cheek onto the top of Sara’s head. “But I do have to talk to you about something.”

“Hm, what is it?” Ava closed her eyes.

“Well, I’ve had my letters from the colleges I applied to lying around for a while now and I got accepted into four.”

“That’s amazing, Sara. Have you decided which one you’re going to yet?”

“Yeah, about that. I’m not sure I actually _want_ to go to college. I’ve never liked school and I’m really not feeling like going for another four years. I just want to be free, you know. I want to do my own thing, find my own path and I just don’t think college is part of that.”

“Sara… look, I know you don’t like school. I get that, I really do, but education is important. If you don’t have a degree, you’ll have less job opportunities. I know you don’t care about that, but I care about you and I want you to be the best version of yourself. Not for me because I love every version of you, but for you personally. You’re going to regret not going to college when you’re older.”

“Ava, baby, I know that if I’d start college, I’d drop out sooner or later anyway, before I finish those four years. I know that you love me and want me to have a good education, but I really don’t want to go to a place I’ll hate.”

“How do you know you’ll hate it? You said going to school wasn’t as bad as it used to be anymore.”

“That’s because you’re there. If it weren’t for you, I don’t think I’d have the grades I have right now. Hell, you know how I was in the beginning of the year. That’s how I was the previous years as well. Even though I’ve changed, people still get out of the way when I walk past them in the hallways. You and I both know I’m not that person anymore, but they’re still scared that I’ll make their lives a living hell. And if I’d lose you, that’s exactly what would happen. If I lose you, I’ll turn back to being the person I used to be. If I go to college, I lose you. And I love you way too much for that.”

“Bu-”

“No ‘buts’. I’ve made my decision, Aves, and you can’t change my mind about that. This will change nothing between us, except that we’ll see each other more than when I would go to college.”

“You know I’m still going to try and change your mind, right? Even if it means I’d get to see you way less than now and wouldn’t be able to kiss or cuddle with you whenever I wanted.”

“I know, and you’re welcome to try, but it’s not going to work.”

“Hm, whatever, we’ll see. Right now, I just want to lie here with you and watch a crappy show.”

“Sounds like music to my ears.”

And that’s what they did. They watched the first show they found on Netflix and watched too many episodes to count. Somewhere through probably the fifth episode, they ordered pizza. They had eaten it all even if there was too much for just the two of them. They fell asleep wrapped up in each other’s arms, the tv long forgotten in the background.

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

She was going back to her dad’s place for the first time in weeks. Ava would drive her there and wait outside in the car. Sara would talk to him if he’d be sober and get the rest of her stuff if he’d be drunk. She really was hoping he would be sober because she did miss her dad.

“Are you ready, babe?”

“Yeah, I guess so. I’m slightly nervous, but I’ll be fine.”

“You can do this and if you do need me, I’m just outside. And don’t rush it either, we have all the time in the world.”

“I know.” Sara walked over to Ava and kissed her on the cheek. “I’m ready, let’s go.” Ava grabbed her keys and they walked to the car and got in. They held hands the entire drive and talked about things that weren’t important at all. The small talk ended when Sara shut her mouth as Ava pulled up in front of the house.

“Babe, you can do this. I know you’re nervous, but you’ll be fine. Maybe your dad changed and hasn’t been drinking for weeks. Take your time and just talk to him. I’ll still be here when you’re done.”

“I know, I know. Just give me a minute and I’ll go in. And who know, maybe you’re right and he hasn’t been drinking.” She knew she’d be okay, whatever happened. She knew because she had Ava and she was the most important person in her life right now and whatever happened with her dad, Ava would still be there. “Okay, I’m ready.”

Ava squeezed her hand for reassurance and then Sara got out of the car and walked up the steps to her house. She got her key put and unlocked the door, reluctantly opening it and then walking inside.

“Dad?” she called out. A few seconds passed and then she saw him walk down the stairs.

“Sara? Is it really you?” He hadn’t seen his daughter in so long and he had missed her, even if he knew he was the one who drove her away.

“Yeah, it’s me.” He walked over to her and embraced her, holding her close. A few tears escaped his eyes and he pulled back a bit.

“I’ve missed you so much.”

“Me too, dad, me too.” And she had. Even if she hadn’t talked about him much and wouldn’t admit it to anyone, she had really missed her dad. She had wanted to go back countless of times, but she was too scared and never went in the end. It had been Ava who had convinced her to go. And she was grateful for it. As she looked around the house, she noticed that there weren’t any empty bottles of alcohol and the place was clean. She smiled a little, realizing that her dad didn’t smell like alcohol either and knowing that it meant he hadn’t been drinking. “How long?” is all she asked.

“Two weeks now. It’s been hard, and it still is, but when I noticed most of your clothes were gone and stuff from your bedroom as well, I know there were things that had to change. I didn’t call because I knew that I had to let you come to me and not force you to come here. I cleaned the house and got rid of every bottle of alcohol there still was. I knew that you’d come back eventually, and I didn’t want you to come home to a place that was a mess. I’m so happy you came back.”

“Yeah, about that. I just came to talk to you and then I’m going back to where I’ve been staying for the past months. I trust you when you say you haven’t drank in two weeks, but I still don’t fully trust you. Maybe you’ll go back to drinking tomorrow. This doesn’t mean that I won’t come by anymore. I’ll come here after school every day to check up on you, but I just can’t come back here permanently yet.” Quentin seemed to want to say something, but he just shut his mouth and nodded slowly instead. He did understand why his daughter wouldn’t want to come back yet. He knew he had done some really bad things, but hearing the words out loud hurt more than he expected.

“Then at least tell me that wherever you’re staying is a good place and that you’re not living in some abandoned building.”

“I promise that wherever I’m staying is a really good and safe place. There’s food on the table and I have a comfortable bed and unlimited access to Netflix.”

“How has school been? Have you decided on which college you’re going to yet?”

“School’s been great. My grades have been better, and the teachers actually enjoy having me in their class now.” Sara chose to ignore the second question, not wanting to have a conversation like she had with Ava all over again.

“That’s really good to hear.”

“Well, I actually also came to pick up some of my stuff so I’m going to go do that now and then I’m going to leave again.”

“Now already? You just got here.”

“I know, but someone’s waiting for me and I don’t want to leave them alone too long. And I’m coming back. You’ll see me again.”

“Oh, okay. Well, go get whatever you need and then I’ll see you soon, I guess.”

“Yeah, you will.” And with that, Sara went upstairs to her room. She grabbed a duffle bag to put the rest of her clothes in and grabbed some other things that were in her room as well. Her room was pretty much empty by the time Sara grabbed everything she needed. Only the furniture was left and Sara didn’t know whether she was happy or not about that. She was happy that she got to live with Ava, obviously, but now that pretty much all her stuff was gone, it felt as if she was leaving a piece of herself behind.

Right before she left her room, she spotted a picture of her sister that was on the wall behind her door. She took it with her and left the house after saying a quick goodbye to her father. She put all her stuff on the backseat and then sat down in the passenger seat and sighed.

“How was it?”

“It was good. You were right, he hasn’t been drinking for the past two weeks. I told him I’m not ready to go back there permanently yet, but that I’ll go there every day after school.”

“That’s really great, Sara. I’m so happy for you.”

“I’m happy for me too, but right now, I just really want to go home.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my beebo, it's been three weeks since the last update. I'm so sorry and I don't even have a proper excuse. I've just been stuck on this chapter for so long because at first, I was writing about stuff that was supposed to happen in like chapter 21 or 22 and that would've messed up the rest of the story so I started all over. I also know this chapter is shorter than usual but I was happy with it this way and it's just a filler anyway.   
> Also life update; I twisted my ankle when i was with my best friend last week and it was the second time in about two and a half months. at first, they gave me a brace because it wasn't broken but I had a checkup yesterday and they decided to put me in a cast because I could barely walk and i was also turing into a smurf. i also had to take off the brace multiple times a day because it just hurt too much. So now I'm stuck with a cast for two weeks.  
> I also start school again in about a week (September 3rd) so I'll probably have less time to write although I've noticed I write more during the school year than during holidays.

Graduation was right around the corner and Sara couldn’t be more excited about it. It was pretty much the only thing she and her friends talked about anymore. They had made plans for after graduation already. They’d go back to Mick’s place to have a little party, just them and sleep over at his place as well. In the morning, they’d go to some place to get breakfast and then go down to the beach to all hang out together. They’d make sandwiches to take with them so they can have lunch on the beach and then in the evening, they’d all go their own way after getting dinner together.

Ava still had a surprise Sara didn’t know about. She would tell her about it as soon as Sara returned from her friends the day after graduation and she was really excited about it.

But for now, there was still school to take care of, still homework to do, still classes to prepare, still a secret to keep. They couldn’t wait till school was over so they could stop hiding their relationship, could love each other without risking everything.

Sara kept up her promise to her dad and went to visit him every day. On some days, she’d stay longer than on others, always varying between ten minutes to an hour. Slowly but surely, she started trusting him again, but they still had a long way to go before they’d be back where they once were.

There was one thing she never talked about to her dad though. Ava. As much as she wanted to tell him about all the amazing times she’s had with her girlfriend, she couldn’t because that girlfriend also just so happened to be her teacher. She knew that, if he ever found out, he’d wouldn’t approve and probably would have Ava be arrested and she just couldn’t risk losing her.

The things Sara enjoyed most about her time with Ava were the little things. Waking up tangled in each other’s arms, eating breakfast together, laying on the couch or on the bed cuddled up while watching tv which usually ended up with at least one of them asleep. She honestly didn’t mind having to hide her relationship from everyone in the world because she was able to have these moments in the safety of Ava’s apartment and she couldn’t be more grateful for her.

The thing was though, she knew her friend were getting more and more suspicious about what was going on as Sara declines more invites to hang out than she used to. Sure, sometimes she was unable to come, but now, it just happened more than usual and it was weird. At least, for Sara it was. Her friends would sometimes tease her about having a boyfriend or a girlfriend, and every time, Sara had to suck in a breath and deny it all. She knew she wouldn’t be able to continue denying everything though. They would eventually find out and she’d rather have them find out from her than from anyone else. That’s why she had decided to tell them right after graduation when they’d be out. She doesn’t think she’d be able to wait any longer beyond that. Besides, she was pretty sure Amaya already knew because Zari, as good of a friend she was and was able not to tell any of her friends, there was no way in hell she’d be able to keep this from her girlfriend. Amaya could read Zari very easily and Zari couldn’t hide anything from her. It was as if they were made for each other. Anytime Sara would see these two be cute together, which she never expected from Zari, she got reminded of her and Ava. The way Zari looked at Amaya was the exact way Sara looked at her girlfriend and vice versa.

It was the exact way Sara was looking at Ava right now. It was a school day and she knew they had to get up, but she just couldn’t find it in her to wake Ava up. She looked so peaceful when she was asleep. When she looked at the clock, she knew that she had to, knew they only had half an hour to get ready and get to school before classes would start and Sara knew she had no other choice but to wake Ava up.

“Aves, baby, wake up,” Sara whispered in her ear before placing a kiss on her cheek. Ava groaned and turned in Sara’s arms, hiding her face in her neck and pulling her impossibly closer to her. “Ava, we have half an hour before school starts. As much as I want to stay here with you, we have to get up or we’re going to be late.”

“Then let’s be late. I don’t want to leave this bed,” Ava mumbled into Sara’s shoulder, at which the latter laughed.

“I know, I know. Me too. But I think it’s going to be a bit obvious if we’re both late.” Sara really did want to just stay where she was. If she could, she would spend the entire day in bed, being lazy with Ava. But she also didn’t want to raise suspicions. She was fairly certain some teacher and the principal were already suspecting something was up with the two. At least, they hadn’t been confronted about it yet, which they were both very grateful for.

“Uuuughh,” Ava groaned. She finally pulled away a bit and opened her eyes. “I swear to God, as much as I love teaching, I seriously can’t wait for it to be summer so I can sleep in a bit and just have lazy days with you.”

“Me too, babe, me too. But we really do have to get up right now, or we’re going to be late. Zari is coming to pick me up in like,” she looked at the time on her phone, “ten minutes. And I have to get dressed and eat breakfast and all that stuff. And you know how Zari gets when I’m not on time.”

“I suppose you’re right. But you’re coming straight home after school today. I know that you’re supposed to go to your dad, but can’t you skip just once? I just want to cuddle with you to be honest.”

“I’m sure my dad will be fine with it. And if he’s not, well, that’s his problem. My girlfriend’s needs are more important to me than what my dad thinks about me not visiting him.”

Ava sat up a little straighter, propped up on her elbow and looked down at Sara. “Am I really more important to you than your dad?” She couldn’t help the small indication of hope behind her voice.

“Of course you are, Ava! You were there for me after Laurel died. You help me through the process without complaining once and you’ve been the most amazing girlfriend any girl could wish for. I honestly couldn’t be more grateful to have you in my life and I intend to keep you around forever.”

“Aww, babe. Don’t make me cry before I even get out of bed.”

Sara laughed and hid her face in Ava’s neck before pulling back, quickly pecking Ava’s neck and getting out of bed. She was wearing one of Ava’s tank tops that was too big on her and although it was longer on Sara, it barely covered her butt.

“You like what you see, huh?” Sara said as she noticed her girlfriend staring at her ass. Ava only nodded. To tease Ava even more, she pulled off her top, discarding it on the ground and walked over to the closet. Ava bit her lip as she did so and had to restrain herself to just get out of bed and pull Sara to her. She knew that if she did, there was no way they’d ever get to school.

Instead she just stayed on the bed until Sara was done getting dressed, only getting up to get dressed herself once Sara walked out of the room.

She was so excited to tell Sara about the surprise she had for her. She had been preparing it for a few weeks now, usually when she had a free period or when Sara was at her dad’s. Ava would be really disappointed if Sara didn’t like it, but she was fairly certain she’d actually love it.

She was still kind of disappointed that Sara wouldn’t go to college, but she did respect her decision. And on a positive note, she’d get to spend more time with the person she loved most.

Ava could easily see herself spend the rest of her life with Sara. She could see them getting married and maybe one day even have kids.

She liked that idea. And if she was being honest with herself, she really did want kids one day. She also wanted that day to come sooner rather than later. Her mom had been 21 when she had Ava, she Ava herself had always had a young mom, and she wanted to be a young mom herself as well. But she did have to think about Sara as well since there was a five-year age gap.

And it was too soon to think about the future anyway. She should live in the present and enjoy her time with Sara, because maybe Sara thought differently about their relationship and didn’t want the things Ava wanted. Although she really did hope so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked this chapter despite it being shorter anyway and I'm gonna try to not take another three weeks for the next update.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry to leave y'all hanging for so long. School has started again and it's been crazy.  
> It was sports day today but I wasn't allowed to participate. I had asked the principal (she's really nice) last week what I had to do and she said i had to come to school, bring some school work. I brought my laptop as well, and let's just say i still haven't done my homework oooooppss.  
> Anyway, I had so much fun writing this chapter, although I know nothing about all this stuff

Sara woke up and was momentarily confused. Usually, she’d wake up with Ava’s hair in her face and their legs tangled together. But now there was none of that. The bed beside her was cold and Sara’s face fell. That was before she remembered what day it was today. The day she’d finally graduate. A smile spread across her face and she threw the covers off her, getting out of bed and walking out the bedroom towards the kitchen where she was met with the smell of freshly baked pancakes and bacon. She saw Ava behind the stove and snuck up on her, wrapping her arms around her waist, standing up on her toes to be able to lean her chin on Ava’s shoulder.

A smile spread across Ava’s face and she turned her head to place a kiss on Sara’s cheek. “Good morning, beautiful. How did you sleep?” She turned her focus back on the food in front of her.

“I slept amazing, but I didn’t like waking up because you weren’t there,” Sara pouted. “I missed waking up next to you.”

“Aww, baby. I promise I’ll make it up to you. And you’ll have to miss me the entire night tonight. Are you sure you’re going to survive that?” Ava smirked. She was looking forward to all the days that were coming because after today, they’d no longer have to hide their relationship. Their love would finally be right and no one would be able to stop them.

“Ugh, I know. I might sneak back here during the night because I’m not sure I can handle sleeping without you.” Sara pulled back as Ava turned to put the pancakes and bacon on the table. She took that as her cue to get some forks and knives and then sat down at the table. “Aves, this looks amazing. You didn’t have to do this.”

“I know, but I wanted to. I mean, you’re graduating today. That’s exciting so you should get amazing food made by your amazing girlfriend who couldn’t be prouder of you for not failing any classes. I never would have thought this at the beginning of the year.”

“Well, me neither. But I’ve changed a lot this past year and it’s all because of you.”

Ava shook her head and Sara looked at her with a confused face. “You didn’t change because of me. You always had it in you. You just hid it because you were afraid of getting hurt. I simply helped you by being there after your sister died. I think that the real reason you let your true nature rise to the surface was your sister. You wanted to make her proud.”

“Even if she wasn’t here to see it. Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“Laurel would be so incredibly proud of you, Sara. I assure you that if she was still here, she’d be the one with tears streaming down her face as you went to get your diploma up on that stage. She’d have been the first person to hug you when the ceremony was over and she’d be the first person to reassure her everything would be fine, that it’s all a part of growing up. I promise you she’s watching you from above.”

“If my sister would still be alive, I would’ve been an aunt by now. But I think that my sister’s death is what lead me to you, and if it is, I couldn’t be more grateful for that because you, Ava Sharpe, are the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“Come here,” Ava said as she held her arms open. Sara got up and walked into them as a tear escaped her eye.

Truth is, she missed her sister more than she could ever say. She knew that, if Laurel hadn’t died and Sara had found her way to Ava anyway, she could’ve told her sister about it. She would have yelled at her at first, but once she was cooled down, she would’ve realized how happy Sara was with Ava and she would have approved, even though Ava was a teacher. She would’ve been happy for her sister.

But reality was a bitch and her sister wasn’t here anymore. Ava was the only reason she had been able to process it. She’d never come to peace with it though, because if anything, Laurel did _not_ deserve to die.

“Today will be amazing, okay? After today, we won’t have to hide our relationship as much anymore. We’ll be able to do whatever we want without a care in the world.”

“Yeah,” Sara pulled back and looked dawn at her hands, “about that. I was actually planning on telling my friends after we’re officially graduated. Like, tonight or tomorrow or something. Are you okay with that?”

“Sara, that isn’t even a question. I know how much your friends mean to you and I’m honestly surprised Zari has been able to keep her mouth shut. I am one hundred percent fine with you telling them.”

“Really?” Deep down Sara had known Ava would be okay with it. But she still needed to be sure before she did so. After all, it wasn’t like telling her friends she was dating a girl. It was telling them she was in a relationship with their teacher. It was telling them how much Ava had meant to her in the past six months and telling them how much she loved her.

Ava nodded. “Absolutely. I think they’re suspecting something already anyway. I also think, or hope at least, they’ll be happy for you.”

“They will be. Zari will be smirking because she already knew. Amaya will smirk because she knew something was up. Ray and Nate will give me the biggest hugs ever. Nora will sit there with a smile on her face and say she’s happy for me. Mick will probably grunt and say he’s happy for me as well, but deep down he’ll be jumping up and down with joy for me because he really is just soft on the inside.”

“Wow. Who’d have thought?”

“I know, right?”

“We have to be at the school in like forty minutes so you should probably start getting ready. Wouldn’t want to be late on your own graduation, now would you?”

“Hm, probably not,” Sara placed a quick kiss on Ava’s lips before stepping away from her, but didn’t let go of her hands just yet. “Have I told you I love you today yet? Because if I didn’t, I love you so much and I’m so excited to finally be able to officially start my life with you.”

Ava sighed and brought Sara’s hand to her lips. “Me too, baby, me too. Just a few more hours now.”

“I know.” She was finally able to fully pull away from her girlfriend’s touch and she walked into the bedroom, picking out some clothes from the shared closet and put them on with more care than usual. After she was done with her clothes, she picked out some flats before going into the bathroom to put on some makeup. She kept it pretty natural, but you could see she was wearing makeup if you were close enough.

“Wow,” Ava said as Sara walked out into the living room. “You look beautiful.”

Sara blushed and looked down at her feet. “Thanks. You should probably get dressed too. I doubt you’ll look any less beautiful than me.”

“Hm, no. You’ll be the most beautiful one today. You’ll be the most beautiful one always.” Ava smiled and carefully wrapped her arms around Sara’s waist.

“Aww, Aves, you’re going to make me cry. I put too much effort into this makeup to have you make me cry,” Sara smirked and leaned in closer to kiss her girlfriend but quickly pulled away after she did so. “Now go get dressed or we’re going to be late.”

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

“How come you’re so late? We’ve been waiting here for like twenty minutes,” Sara heard Zari say as she approached her friends. “It’s graduation, you idiot. You should be really excited and have been here way too early.”

Sara rolled her eyes. “Hello to you too, sunshine. What has you being so grumpy?”

“She was up all night coding something and now she regrets not sleeping,” Amaya said and rubbed her girlfriend’s back. “But really though, why are you so late?”

“I, uhm, didn’t know what to wear and then I hate to put makeup on and you know how bad I am at that,” Sara lied. She couldn’t wait for the evening to come so she’d finally be able to stop lying to her friends.

Amaya and Zari looked at her with a weird, almost confused look on their faces. They had went shopping for graduation dresses a little over a month ago, so they didn’t get why their friend wouldn’t know what to wear. The makeup part they did understand because Sara only wore mascara to school and half of the time she’d even forget to put that on.

“Come on, let’s go find out places,” Nate said, getting rid of the sudden tension that was hanging in the air.

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

The graduation ceremony passed by quicker than they thought it would. Before they knew it, they were throwing their caps in the air and screaming at the top of their lungs, hugging each other while jumping up and down. They were officially finished with high school and were at the beginning of their adult lives. Sara was the only one of the group of friends that wouldn’t go to college, but Mick would probably drop out during the first year and Zari had already gotten plenty of job offers because of her coding skills so she’d most likely drop out as well.

Sara had seen Ava smirk when she was up on the stage to get her diploma and had sent her a look that said she was proud of her. Sara had had to do her best to hide the blush on her face and had tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She had then focused on getting back to her seat without looking back at her girlfriend.

As the crows calmed down, Sara carefully took out her phone to check the time and saw she had a text from Ava.

[From: Ava To: Sara I’m so proud of you babe. Enjoy your time with your friends and I can’t wait to see you xx]

Sara smiled and held her phone to her chest before replying

[From: Sara To: Ava Thank you xx Me too. I’m gonna miss you tonight]

And in that moment, Sara doesn’t think she’s ever been happier in her entire life. She had everything she ever wanted right in front of her and she couldn’t be more grateful for that. She was only 18, had just graduated high school and had a girlfriend who she would officially move in with the day after tomorrow and would finally be able to start her life. Yes, her life could’ve been different. She could have been an aunt by now, she could have had a normal girlfriend, whatever ‘normal’ might be. But besides getting her sister back, there’s nothing Sara would change about the past year. It had been amazing. She and Zari grew closer than she ever thought they would be, Zari and Amaya were in a happy relationship, Ray and Nora were still happily together and the rest of the gang couldn’t really care less about a relationship.

And tonight was the night. The night where Sara could finally be fully honest with her friends again. The night she could finally come out for her love for her English teacher. The teacher she so despised at the beginning of the year. The one she would’ve wished dead for telling her she was putting on a mask, being a character instead of just being Sara. The woman who had been there for her after Laurel’s death and every hard moment that followed. The person she had spent almost every night in the past six months with.

Tonight was the night she could finally tell her friends about the woman she loves more than existence itself.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so I don't know why it takes me like three weeks between chapters. I could've finished this chapter like two weeks ago, but I guess i only felt like writing when i was at school, which is when I don't have access to my laptop so i can't write and i don't remember what the last thing i write is sooooooo.
> 
> Anyway, it's here now.
> 
> This chapter was a lot of fun to write though. There's an almost 500-word monologue and I still don't know how I did that. But it happened, so i guess we should all be happy about that :)
> 
> Hope you all enjoy this chapter and I guess I'll see you in three weeks? :)   
> (still ever so disappointed in the face that ao3 doesn't do emojis)

“Guys, oh my God, we did it! We survived high school!” Nate exclaimed as soon as they arrived at Mick’s place. Even though it had been the topic of conversation the entire car ride, it still seemed surreal and apparently Nate still felt the need to tell them once again.

“Yes, and now we all get to go to college,” Nora replied as she rolled her eyes. “Well, all of us except Sara, who for some reason that I still haven’t quite figured out isn’t going.”

“Babe, I’m sure she has a good reason. And if she doesn’t want to go, that’s okay,” Ray told Nora before Sara even got the chance to open her mouth. “We all know she would drop out sooner rather than later anyway. So why waste the money?”

“Hm, I guess you got a point.” Nora leaned up and placed her lips on Ray’s.

“Guys, no pda, please. Not while I’m present,” Zari groaned and pretended to throw up. Amaya glared at her. “What?”

“You don’t seem to mind when I kiss you when we’re in public. Just leave them be.”

“Bu-”

“No ‘buts’. You either shut your mouth or you leave.” Amaya’s tone was stern, but anyone who knew her knew she was joking. She loved Zari too much to let her leave for such a stupid reason.

“Come on, guys. We should celebrate. Mick, did you get the booze?” Sara cut in.

Mick groaned. “Of course I did.” He grabbed a bag from behind the couch. Everyone from the group cheered.

“That’s what I’m talking about!”

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

A couple hours later, most of them were still pretty sober. Amaya and Ray had stopped after one drink, followed by Zari and Nora who stopped after just two. Mick had had way more than anyone else, but you couldn’t tell. It was already getting pretty late and they were all hungry, so they decided to go order some pizza.

An hour and five pizzas later, they were all lying across the floor, Amaya with her head on her girlfriend’s stomach, Sara’s head in Amaya’s lap, Nate’s legs lay across Sara’s and his head lay across Ray’s legs, who had his girlfriend’s head on his chest. Mick was the only one who was on the couch and didn’t have any other people half on top of him. They were telling stories from when they were younger, all of them already pretty much sobered up due to the food they ate earlier.

“Do you remember that time back in fifth grade when we had that English project and we somehow all got paired up for once. I think the teacher still has nightmares about it,” Nate laughed.

“Well, obviously. I still hear our classmates talk about it every now and then. They definitely had the time of their lives,” Zari added. She remembered every detail from that day and it was high up on her list of favorite days in her entire life.

“Although that was a really fun day, it may also have been the day where we got the worst grades from that entire year. I mean, understandable because the amount of curse words we used was pretty bad, besides all the other stuff that went down that day, of course.” Sara said and laughed, shaking her head in the process. Her dad had been far from happy from the grade she received for that project, but it did make a pretty good story to tell.

“Guys, I’m going to miss all of you so much when summer is over,” Sara continued. It was now or never. “Missing people is part of the reason I’m not going to college either. And believe me when I say that, what I’m about to tell you, I’ve wanted to tell you guys since the very beginning, but I just couldn’t risk it. It meant too much to me to lose it and I’m pretty sure I would’ve been even a bigger mess than when my sister died.” She looked at Zari and Zari nodded at her in approval. “That’s where it started, actually,” Sara grinned. “So you all know what a mess I was after Laurel’s accident, but I didn’t really talk about it to anyone. My school grades got even worse than they already were and I guess teachers started noticing and were worried because I wasn’t the person I used to be. I think you all also know that I hated Ms. Sharpe with a passion. The less I saw her, the happier I was. But a week after Laurel’s death, she basically forced me to talk to her. And I did. From that point on, she’d ask me if I was okay every now and then. She gave me her number the first time we talked but I never used it. Until a night in November where my dad just went crazy. I called her and she came to pick me up and brought me to her apartment. We talked a lot over the course of the weekend, I slept over on Friday and Saturday and on Sunday, I knew I had to leave. She said she didn’t want me to go, but I don’t think it was her intention that I heard it. Nevertheless, I did. We exchanged a few words and then I asked her if I could try something and when she said I could, I kissed her.” All of her friends but Zari gasped and had faces of unbelieve. “Yeah yeah, I know what y’all are thinking, that it’s gross. Whatever, doesn’t matter. Remember that I didn’t come to school for an entire week? Well, that was the week after the kiss. I had been living in an abandoned building for the week and Ava drove around an entire day just to find me, which she eventually did. And ever since the beginning of December Ava and I have been together, hiding our relationship from everyone. Zari figured it out pretty quickly though, but I made her promise not to tell anyone. Felicity, I mean, Ms. Smoak and Mr. Queen know too, because Felicity is really freaking smart and saw right through Ava. And I know what you must be thinking. That a teacher and a student should never be together, and that’s true, but I really love her and she loves me back. I don’t know what I’d do if I ever lost her.”

Sara didn’t know what to make of her friends’ facial expressions. She could see a hint of a smile on Nate’s face, mostly shock on Amaya’s face and Mick’s face had the same blank expression as always. Zari’s face had a grin spread across it, mixed with a proud smile for her friend finally telling everyone.

“Wow, that’s, uhm, shocking and kind of… weird? How long have you been together again?” Amaya asked.

“We’ve been together since December fourth. I need you to know that I didn’t want to keep this from all of you, but I simply didn’t have any other choice. If it weren’t for her, I don’t think I’d be sitting here right now.” And it was true. Ava had literally saved Sara from the darkness and Sara would never be able to thank her enough for it. Ava meant the world to her and she’d be lost without her girlfriend in her life. “And it feels really, _really_ good to finally be able to say that Ava is my girlfriend out loud.”

Nate jumped up and hugged Sara. “I’m happy as long as you’re happy. If she was the reason you smiled again after your sister, well, you know, then I will be forever grateful for her existence, even if she had me fail my test that one time.”

Sara smiled. “I’m pretty sure that wasn’t her fault but yours. And just for the record, I failed that test too. She was so mad at me. Luckily I was able to make it up to her, but I’ll save you the details,” she smirked.

“THANK YOU!” Zari yelled. “And you already know this, but I’m really happy you two found each other, even if you guys weren’t allowed to be together. You went through so much shit already and you got through it because of her. Now that school is finally over, and Ava isn’t your teacher and you’re not her student anymore, you finally get to live your life together to the fullest, and I’m so happy you get to do so.”

“Thanks, Z. I really appreciate that.”

The rest of the reactions were a little mixed, but in the end, everyone was happy for her. Sara had never felt more relieved in her life than in that moment. She doesn’t remember much of what happened after that, too caught up in her own happiness.

It wasn’t like much had happened anyway. They had played a game, eaten some snacks while doing so and around 1 am, they went to sleep. Of course, Sara had texted Ava right before to tell her goodnight and tell her how much she missed her. Ava had texted her goodnight back and said she couldn’t wait for the following day to see her again.

Because even though it had only been a few hours since they had last seen each other, to them it felt like days. That’s how much they loved each other. Six months into their relationship, and they already couldn’t live without each other. But then again, Sara had spent almost every night of those six months sleeping over at Ava’s place. They were never apart except when they were at school or Sara was visiting her dad.

That night, Sara dreamt about her future life with Ava. They were married and had a daughter. Sara hoped that, one day, they could actually get to that point. But she especially hoped that they could grow old together, regardless of them ever getting married or have any kids.

And yes, that might be a weird thing to say, especially at eighteen years old, but that didn’t make it any less true.

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

When Ava and Sara saw each other again, it was in front of the entire group. Ava had blushed when Sara kissed her while the others could see, but knew it was fine as soon as they all started cheering, except for Zari who made gagging noises and said, ‘Kill me now, please.’ They had all talked for a long while, until they started to leave one by one, Sara and Ava leaving after Zari and Amaya did. They had all congratulated them again when they were at the door and Sara and Ava had had smiles that reached their ears on their faces.

Once they arrived back home, they settled on the couch, all cuddled up together while doing absolutely nothing else, not even watching tv, not even talking. It was nice. It really did feel like the start of the beginning of the rest of their lives.

Just as Sara was starting to fall asleep in Ava’s arms, Ava spoke up.

“Babe?” Her voice was hoarse, obviously being sleepy too.

“Hm?”

“So I wanted to ask you something, but I need to explain it first.”

“Mkay.” Sara nuzzled her head deeper into Ava’s neck.

“So you know how my mom lives in Australia, right? I kind of promised her I’d visit during summer. But that would mean I’d have to leave you behind for like three weeks, and I really don’t want that. So I was thinking, maybe you could come with me? I mean, if you want to of course. If you don’t, then that’s fine but I ju-”

Sara leaned up and kissed Ava, making her girlfriend shut up. She had been wide awake as soon as Ava had mentioned Australia.

“I would _love_ to come to Australia with you. I would love to meet your mom.”

“Good, cause I alreadykindoftoldheryouwouldbecoming.”

“I didn’t understand anything from that sentence.”

“I already kind of told her you would be coming,” Ava looked down.

“What would you have done if I had said no?” Sara smirked.

“Well, I knew I didn’t really have to worry about you doing that, because I know you’d never give up an opportunity to spend time with me.”

“So sure of yourself, are you?”

“When it comes to you? Always.”

Sara smiled and kissed Ava again before nuzzling her head into Ava’s neck again.

She fell asleep with a satisfied smile on her face.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how long it's been, but oh well.
> 
> I'm still not okay after that season 4 premiere. there were more avalance kisses in that first episode than there were in the entirety of season 3 and i'm loving it. I'm so ready for tonight's episode. I'm watching live again, which is in the middle of the night for me. Last week, i didn't sleep anything at all and I had an english test the following day sooooooooo.
> 
> This chapter is crap and shorter than usual, but enjoy anyway ;)

~~~~

“Baaaaabeeee, are you ready?” Ava called from the couch. Sara was in their bedroom packing up the last necessities. She had told Ava to just relax on the couch because she had been running around almost nonstop for the past two days, getting everything ready for their trip to Australia. They were leaving early in the morning, because the trip would take almost 24 hours.

“Almost. Just a couple more things and then we can cuddle in bed while watching tv, okay?” For the past two weeks, Ava and Sara had always cuddled in bed while watching tv till the early hours of the morning, usually going to bed around 3 or 4 and waking up around noon. It wasn’t healthy, but it was summer so it didn’t matter. They didn’t have to get up for anyone.

Since Sara had told her friends, it had been such a relief that she could just talk about their relationship freely. She did still have to watch out in public though, because, as much as she loved him, she didn’t want her dad to know just yet. She knew he would find out sooner rather than later, but she wanted to keep it to herself for as long as she could.

The lie she told her dad about going to Australia? She said Zari invited her and Amaya to go on a holiday with her and her family. And technically she wasn’t lying. Zari _had_ invited her to join her holiday, but Sara had obviously said no and told her she was going to Australia with Ava. Zari had been so happy for her and Sara had blushed. All of her friends were so happy for her.

“Yes please.”

Sara came into the living room a couple of minutes later. Her hair was an absolute mess and she had changed into a t-shirt that was way too big on her and sweatpants that most definitely weren’t hers. Ava smirked at the sight, biting her lip as her girlfriend walked towards her. She was in so deep, she doesn’t think she’d ever be able to leave Sara’s side ever. They loved each other so much, it hurt. And for Sara, Ava wanting her to meet her mom was really important to her because it meant she was as serious about their relationship as she was.

“You know what I really want right now?” Sara said as she plopped down next to Ava on the couch. “I want to eat that ice cream we bought yesterday because I’ve been craving it all day but didn’t get the chance to actually eat it.”

Ava laughed. “Then why didn’t you go get it right before you sat down here? Now you’ll have to get up again.”

Sara groaned and laid her head on her girlfriend’s shoulder. “I don’t want to get up.”

“Do you want me to go get it for you?”

“I don’t want you to leave my side either.”

“Well, then I’m afraid we have a problem. You see, there are only those two options, besides just leaving it or us both getting up. And if you really want that ice cream, you’re going to have to choose.”

“Ugh, fine,” Sara mumbled, getting up and walking to the kitchen. She grabbed he ice cream from the freezer and took two spoons before walking back to the couch and letting herself fall on top of Ava.

They were about halfway through the ice cream when Ava spoke.

“Sara, you know I love you, right?”

Sara sat up a little and looked her girlfriend in the eyes. “Of course I know that. I love you too. Why? Is something wrong? Did something happen?”

“No no, nothing of the sort. It’s just, you’re going to meet my mom and she like, she knows we’re dating and that you were my student and all that stuff. But your dad doesn’t know about us. I don’t know, I just thought that maybe you should, you know, tell him?” Ava looked down at her hands, fidgeting with her spoon.

Sara put her fingers under Ava’s chin and made her look at her. “Hey, you’re right. I probably should tell him, but I’m… scared, I guess. I have absolutely zero clue as to how he’s going to react. I mean, I _know_ he’s going to be fine with the fact that I have a girlfriend. I just don’t know how he’ll respond to said girlfriend being my teacher. That’s why I’ve been putting off on telling him. The past year has been hard on him, and I still don’t fully trust him again after everything that happened.”

“I get that, I do. I’m not saying you should tell him right _now_. Just like, in the next few weeks. Maybe after we’ve returned from Australia? I don’t know. I’m not going to force you to do this. I just thought that it’s like, time to tell him. And you know that, if he reacts badly, it won’t change anything between us. Of course, I’d like for him to accept me as your girlfriend and I would _love_ to meet the man who raised you, but if not, things between us will stay just the same.”

“God, I love you.” Sara leaned in to give Ava a quick kiss and then pulled back. “I promise you that, once we return from Australia, I _will_ tell him. I don’t know how, but I’ll figure something out. And you’re right. Him not accepting you won’t change anything between us, but if he doesn’t accept you, then he’ll have to live with the consequence that he pushed his daughter away once again. And I’m not sure I’ll ever talk to him again then.”

“Sar-”

“No, this isn’t up for discussion. He chooses either the both of us, or no one at all. I don’t care if he’s my dad or not, if he’s family or not. You’re my family now and I don’t want to change that for anything in the world.”

“You would really give up your dad for me?”

“ _Yes!_ I thought I had made that clear by now.”

Ava didn’t say anything, simply took the spoon and ice cream from Sara’s hand and put it on the coffee table together with her own spoon. She pushed Sara down on the couch and laid down on top of her.

“I love you so much,” she whispered before connecting her lips with Sara’s. Sara moaned into Ava’s mouth and pushed back a little bit, quickly flipping them so she was on top. Her hand roamed under Ava’s shirt and reached up to her bra. She pulled back a little. “Let’s get rid of this, shall we?” she whispered. She reached behind Ava’s back and unclasped the bra, pulling it off after also pulling off her shirt. The clothes were thrown behind the couch, probably almost landing in the kitchen, but it’s not like they cared very much in that moment. Ava smiled and connected her lips to Sara’s again. Soon enough, all clothes were thrown into all directions and both women were too preoccupied with each other to even think about caring about anything else than each other. 

<><><><><><><><><><><> 

They woke up at 3 am the following morning, barely having slept 4 hours after they finished and had fallen asleep after a couple minutes of just talking to each other. They went through their morning routine mostly in silence, both being too tired to even talk. Around 3.45 am, they left to go to the airport and they arrived 45 minutes later. Their flight didn’t leave until 8 am, but Ava wanted to be there early.

As they were waiting for their flight to leave, Sara sat snuggled up into Ava’s side, her head on her shoulder and her hands in her lap. In return, Ava leaned her head on Sara’s and covered Sara’s hands with her own.

“You know, there’s no one else I would’ve wanted to spend these past seven months with. I know I’ve said this like a billion times, but I really mean it. At the beginning of this year, I hated you so much. I don’t know why, you had done nothing wrong, but yet I did. But then everything with my sister happened and I had held it all in for so long that I just spilled it all out to the first person who asked. I still don’t know why I did that, by the way.”

“I’m really grateful that you did. If you hadn’t I don’t think we would be here right now.”

“Probably not. After everything happened and things calmed down a bit, were a little less focused on me, I started focusing on you and that’s when I saw who you really were. I stopped seeing you as my stern, stick-up-her-ass English teacher, and started seeing the really sweet, caring and loving person who Ava Sharpe really is. Well, I think you remember everything that happened from that point forward, but I honestly wouldn’t change a thing. And now I’m going to meet your mom, and I honestly am really excited.”

“That means a lot to me. Just so you know, my mom’s really excited about meeting you too. I think she has like a billion presents for you by now.” Ava rolled her eyes as Sara laughed. “It’s just that, I’ve never taken anyone home. She knows that I only take someone to meet her when things are really serious. So in almost 24 years, you will be the first girlfriend to be introduced to my mom. You should feel honored.”

“I do feel honored. I’m meeting the mom of my favorite person in the entire world.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading the first chapter. It might take a few days before the next chapter will be up, seeing as school started again today, but I'll try to get it up as soon as possible.


End file.
